Carbon
by Dark Aegis
Summary: He had to prepare her for the future. Prepare her to become his champion, his saviour. But how could he prepare her when he was broken? A Companion Story to Padwanpooh's Facets through the Ninth Doctor's eyes. Cowritten by Gillian Taylor and WMR.
1. Prologue: Everything Dies

**Title:** Carbon  
**Authors:** WMR & Gillian Taylor  
**Rating:** PG  
**Characters:** Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, & lots of familiar faces  
**Summary:** He had to prepare her for the future. Prepare her to become his champion, his saviour. But how could he prepare her when he was broken? A Companion Story to Padawanpooh's 'Facets' through the Ninth Doctor's eyes.  
**Spoilers:** Gallifrey Go Boom, all of Series One  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own them. We just like playing with them...a lot.  
**Archive:** Sure, just let us know.

**A/N:** Many thanks to Padawanpooh for very generously allowing us to play in her universe and to NNWest for beta-reading. Facets can be found at the following URL (remove the spaces and add an equal sign between the 'sid' and '4402') www. whofic. com / viewstory.php ? sid 4402.

* * *

_Carbon  
A Companion story to Padawanpooh's Facets - Nine's story  
by Wendy Richards and Gillian Taylor_

**Prologue: Everything Dies**

No time.

The words played again within his mind - a mantra as he dashed around the console, frantically flipping switches and turning knobs.

No time.

The fleet of Dalek ships was amassed before him. Ten million ships obscured the view of thousands of stars and the other planets of the solar system projected overhead.

No time.

There were two things that he could do. Only two. One was to let the Dalek fleet attack and claim Gallifrey and the all-important Eye of Harmony for themselves. Two was to destroy his homeworld.

No time.

The fleet moved closer, the faint glow at the edge of one of the vanguards indicating its preparation to fire. He had to do something. If he let the Daleks take control of the Eye, they would have the power of reliable Time Travel. If he let them claim his home, they would have access to the vast resources of the Time Lords - including the Matrix. If he let them win, the history of the universe would unravel – rewritten into whatever image the Dalek Emperor saw fit.

No time.

"Now or never," he told himself grimly. What choice did he have? The safety of the universe versus the safety of Gallifrey. No choice. None whatsoever.

No time.

Of all the Time Lords on Gallifrey, Romana had chosen him for this task. It had been the Doctor, the rebel, that Romana had asked to choose. Daleks or Gallifrey. The universe or his home. Doomsday was upon them and he had no time to consider his options. There were no options. No choice. Nothing that he could do.

No time.

No more meteor showers. No more silver trees. No more Lungbarrow and his silly cousins. No more Panopticon. No more Citadel. No more Romana. No more Time Lords. No more Gallifrey. And his finger was upon the button.

No time.

The last battle of the Time War was upon them. The galactic tournament of chess had reached its endgame. The pieces were in place. The kings, queens, bishops, and knights were in position. What little was left of the Time Lords' defences squared off against the Dalek fleet. Fire blazed across the Gallifreyan solar system as the bombardment began. There was no time. He had to choose.

No time.

The last of the Bowships exploded in a blaze of multi-hued light, leaving behind a single Black Hole-Carrier and an N-form.

No time.

He was the last defence. No choice. Nothing to be done.

He pressed the button.

* * *

Time stopped. 

The universe caught its breath, poised upon the brink of destruction. A moment. A second. A breath. Overload.

Time exploded.

The massive power source of the Time Lords had once had another purpose. That purpose was restored. The Eye of Harmony broke free of its restraints.

Time slowed.

Those lucky, or perhaps unlucky, Time Lords who were within the Panopticon had no warning. They were gone, destroyed, crushed to their component materials, in under a second by the massive gravitational forces of the black hole. The planet surface was laced with blazing cracks, revealing the fiery core. Nothing could withstand the power of the Eye.

Not even Gallifrey.

In the silence of space, the planet imploded leaving behind an afterimage of fire that slowly disappeared into the seething mass of the Eye. Its gravitational forces pulled ship after ship, planet after planet, and even the sun itself into its thrall. Energy and matter began a deadly spiral into the Eye's embrace. Explosions rippled through the fleet as millions upon millions of vessels were destroyed.

Gallifreyan and Dalek ships burned.

None were spared from the fire.

Not even the Type 40 TARDIS permanently disguised as a Police Public Call box.

Not even the Doctor.

* * *

There comes a time that a choice must be made. To live, or to die. To choose what others cannot. To weigh a choice against the survival of the universe. He made that choice. To save Time, to save the universe, he chose. Perhaps it was wrong. Perhaps he was right. But he made that choice and he would have to live with his decision for the rest of his lives. 

Gallifrey and the Dalek fleet burned.

All because of him. He had reached the only decision that he could, even though he knew what it would mean. The Doctor, the destroyer of worlds, the Oncoming Storm, had gained a new title.

The Last Time Lord.

His breath caught upon a pain-wracked sob as he crawled toward the console. He had to change the coordinates, he had to get somewhere, anywhere, other than here. There was only one place in the universe that could possibly help. He had destroyed his world, and now he had to learn how to deal with that fact. However, that would be a task for his next life. He spared a brief thought for his future self, for he knew that his ninth life was destined to be short. Rose, though she had not specifically said, had all but implied as such. Not even alive, yet already condemned to death. What would that do to him?

"Guess I'll find out," he murmured through cracked lips.

Golden light rippled down his burnt and bloodied flesh to disappear beneath the cracked and charred velvet of his coat, and he smiled grimly. Death would not smile upon him today. Time had yet to lose her champion.

The pulses of light increased in tempo, and he could practically hear the accompanying drums. A twist of the switch, and the bass drum began to beat. A turn of the knob, and the snare drum picked up the beat. The golden pulse was increasing in strength, and he could practically feel as every cell in his body died. The drums reached their crescendo.

So ends the Eighth Doctor.

In flames.

* * *

This was how his ninth universe began: with fire. The acrid stench of burnt circuitry assaulted his new senses. The high-pitched whine of the ship, his ship, his poor damaged ship, hurt his ears. It was wrong. All of it. Nothing was right. His new senses, his new body, everything was wrong. 

This was how his ninth universe fractured: he became aware of an aching blackness within his soul - the piece of him that had been aware of his people, his planet. Now, there was nothing. He was alone. The Doctor, the coward, the destroyer of worlds, survived.

He staggered, catching his almost-fall with a strangely long-boned hand against the console. No one was there. No one was alive, except for him. Anger burned deep within him - anger at himself, though he had done the right thing. Anger at the universe, his people, and the Daleks for forcing that choice upon him. But, most of all, it was anger at Death. So many times, so many places, he had danced with her. Yet each time she pushed him away. Oh, he knew he had things to do. Most Time Lords did. Well, Time Lord now.

He had to meet Rose.

Rose.

This was it. This was the regeneration that she would lose. Barely started this life, yet already doomed to 'death'. Or, rather, death as his people knew it.

"Fantastic."

This was the part of regeneration that he hated the most. The newness of everything. New teeth. New skin. New hair, or rather not much hair. Strange, that. After the long and curly hair of his previous incarnation, having little hair seemed rather ironic. New ears. New toes. New fingers. Taller, too. The charred velvet of his coat sleeve barely reached past his elbows and he shrugged it off in disgust. New everything. And yet not-so-new memories. The haze of regeneration could not cover the pain in his soul or the knowledge that he was the last of his kind.

The rumble of the TARDIS died, signalling their arrival at whatever point his previous self had decided was safe. He couldn't remember. He didn't want to remember. The pain was too fresh. Too new. Just like him.

He stumbled toward the doors, unconsciousness lurking at the edges of his mind. Haunting him. Daring him to give in. Maybe in sleep the emptiness would go away. Maybe in unconsciousness he could find peace. Yet he resisted. There were things to do. He had work to do. He had...

Nothing.

The doors opened with an audible creak, revealing a scorched exterior panel. What? He considered the burnt and peeling blue "paint" with a stunned expression. That shouldn't happen. The exterior of the TARDIS was impregnable, impossible to breach or damage. However, the truth lay before his eyes. War could damage her. Just as it had damaged him.

"Doctor!"

He registered the voice on the edge of his senses. He was known here. Wherever here was.

"My God, man, what happened?" The concerned gaze of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart swam into focus.

He blinked blearily. "Brigadier?" Before he could hear Alistair's response, the Doctor slumped bonelessly to the ground. The darkness rushed in and he knew no more.

* * *

Darkness. 

He was surrounded by it. Cocooned by it. Soothed by it. Here, nothing could hurt him. Here, he could forget. Here, he was safe - safe from his memories, safe from the demands of the universe, safe from the demands of Time.

He drifted through the darkness. Voices sometimes called to him through the dark, but he ignored them. It was better here.

He floated.

However, even the desires of the mind could not fight back the needs of the flesh. Sensation began to return in spurts. One moment, he could feel someone's touch. The next, he could hear a word. 'Doctor?' And then the soothing darkness would return. He was safe. No more war. No more Doctor.

Where was death?

He felt something cool touch his brow and murmured words that made little sense to his damaged mind. He resisted his return. Unconsciousness was better. At least in the darkness he could forget the pain.

"You can't stay unconscious forever, Doctor." The gentle words reached him, cocooned in the darkness.

Yes, he could.

'No, you can't.' The voice of one of his previous selves came to the forefront of his mind. 'Yes, Gallifrey is gone.'

No. He would not listen.

'Yes, I pushed the button. Yes, it hurts. But this is not helping.'

Wasn't it?

'You can't hide forever. You have to wake up. Because without you out there the universe is going to end.'

All things die.

'But not now. This _isn't_ how it's supposed to go.'

He should have died.

'But you didn't. And in that, there's hope.'

No. There was no hope. Not any more. Without him...

'Rose.'

Ah, there it was. The truth of his existence defined by a human girl. If he remained unconscious, he would never meet her. If he remained unconscious, the universe would end. Just like Gallifrey, he had to choose. Life or death.

He chose.

And opened his eyes.

* * *

He stared mournfully into the cup of tea. His body ached both from emotional and physical trauma, and yet he could not stop himself from thinking. He could not stop himself from reliving every moment, every action, every thought that had rumbled through his mind as he reached his fatal decision. 

Everything that he had loved, everything that he had known, was gone. Burnt to a cinder. Destroyed. No more Gallifrey. No more Time Lords. No more... anything. For so long, he had wanted to be free. He had wanted to go through his lives without knowing they were leaning over his shoulder, silently condemning his every action. And so, in the end, the rebel survives. Now all he wanted was to be able to go back to the way things were.

"Doctor?"

He lifted his head to meet the Brigadier's concerned gaze. He had not talked much over the past day and a half since he had woken up. He preferred sitting in the gardens, staring blankly into the distance, alone with his thoughts. Alone with his pain. Alone with his memories. This regeneration, he decided, seemed to be doomed to depression. How could he help Rose, whenever he met her, become the woman she was meant to be like this? He could barely help himself.

"Want to talk about it?"

No. Not really. How did one go about talking about how they had destroyed their homeworld? How did one describe pressing the button, saving the universe, and condemning himself in return? How did one describe the aching blackness in his soul – the piece of him that would be forever lost along with Gallifrey? "I..." The word was scratchy, itching at the back of his throat. Seemed he had a trace of a Northern accent this time around. Interesting. "I'm not sure."

"Hmm," Alistair replied, regarding his drink with a thoughtful expression. "It does help."

He shrugged. Maybe it did. Maybe it did not. But he had no desire to talk about it. No desire to remember. Not now. Not when the wound was still raw. Not when he could feel the gaping nothingness in his mind. Not when he was the last of his kind.

"Doctor." He knew that tone. The _Brigadier_ voice.

"What?"

"This isn't healthy. Keeping it all in. You're going to have to talk about it sometime."

No, he didn't. He covered his response in the act of taking a sip of tea. Not now. Maybe in a few centuries. But not now.

The Brigadier shook his head. "You're still too stubborn for your own good, Doctor."

He wanted to snort. He wanted to bark out a bitter laugh. Too stubborn? Not by half. If he was too stubborn, he would have found another way. He would have been able to save the universe, save his people, defeat the Daleks, and still get home in time for tea. He would still be his eighth self and this conversation-that-was-anything-but would never have happened. Stubborn? No. Coward? Yes.

The other man seemed to give up on him. He stood and regarded the Doctor through slightly hooded eyes. "I'm still here, Doctor. And so are you. You're still alive. Don't forget that, no matter how much it hurts." The Brigadier rested a hand on his shoulder, giving it a brief squeeze before he began to leave.

No. He couldn't let him leave like this. "Alistair? It's too soon. I can't... not yet."

"Not yet? Doctor, 'not yet' is another term for never. Don't let it fester for too long. The wounds may never heal." In the Brigadier's eyes, for but a moment, he saw a kindred spirit. Similar ails, similar pains. Then the glimpse into Alistair's soul disappeared.

Now he understood why his previous self had chosen to come here. Who best to understand the wounds of war than a soldier? Who better than Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart? However, his previous self had expected too much of him. He could not speak. Not now. "Maybe not," he agreed. It might be better that way.

Alistair smiled faintly. "It's not easy being a survivor. But brooding about what happened doesn't help you to forget. Instead, it only makes things worse. Take it from someone who knows. You may not want to hear it, but you're going to have to go back out there. Go back to being you. Saving the universe, or a planet, or a single person. Because that's the only way you're going to be able to live again."

How did these silly apes do it? How could they gain such insight into life in such a short breadth of time? How could the Brigadier have such a window into his own soul? He had spent too much time around humans. They were starting to rub off. But living was not an easy proposition. Then again, it never was. The Brigadier was right. Enough of this moping. There was work to be done.

Something of his thoughts must have been obvious to his old friend, for Alistair's smile deepened. "Doctor, when you're ready to talk, I'm here."

"I'll take you up on that some day, Alistair." It was about time that he returned to the TARDIS, checked over her controls, and went back to living.

"I'll hold you to that." The Brigadier nodded and held out a hand.

The Doctor grasped it within both of his hands, trying to convey through the gesture just what his old friend's actions meant to him. "Thanks."

"That's what friends are for."

* * *

Nothing had changed. 

He would still save the universe. Still save planets and people every other day. Still right wrongs, champion the oppressed, and defeat megalomaniacs on a semi-daily basis. It would still be the Doctor and his trusty TARDIS, travelling through time and space. Alone. Until, of course, he encountered his destiny in the shape of Rose.

However, the Doctor knew he was deluding himself.

Nothing had changed, yet everything had. Every mention of the Time Lords, Gallifrey, and the Time War had become myths and legends. Across the galaxy, nothing was known of them. They were nothing. They were gone. And only the Doctor remained.

Some day he would be ready to talk about it. However, that day would be a long time coming. In being himself, in being the Doctor, he would manage to keep that pain at bay. But only sometimes.

For now, he had work to do.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 1: Rose

**Chapter 1: Rose**

Earth. It was always Earth. He seemed to spend most of his lives saving that planet, with its primitive, ignorant little apes, from one disaster after another. Not that any of them, getting on with their normal, boring, blinkered lives, ever knew just what they'd been saved from.

Not that it mattered. It was all in a day's work, after all. Save the planet, home in time for tea.

Well, not _home_. Home was...

Home, now and for the rest of his lives, was the TARDIS. His ship - still beautiful - painstakingly rebuilt with his own hands, using whatever parts he could find.

The Nestene signal had taken him to a department store. Too easy, really. One of these days, he'd actually like someone to present him with a challenge.

So, all he had to do was plant his explosive device in the appropriate position, and BOOM! The relay signal would be -

Wait. There was someone in the shop. Someone alive. Someone _human_.

Stupid idiot apes! Didn't they know they were supposed to be well out of here by now? Serve whoever it was right if they got caught by one of the Autons that'd be waking up any time now.

Sighing, he used his sonic screwdriver to trace the human it had detected. The basement. It would have to be all the way down there, when he needed to get up onto the roof.

He ran silently along the corridor. One human up ahead. No. That one was dead; one quick check of the carotid artery confirmed what he'd guessed as soon as he'd seen the man's body. But there was still a live human somewhere, and -

Yes. In there. He slipped in through the door, pressing his body flat against the wall as he surveyed the storeroom. The Autons were already on the move. And he could hear panicked breathing from somewhere in among the display racks and discarded accessories. A woman.

He edged along the wall until he was close enough to grab her hand. "Run!"

And, to her very great credit, she did what he told her.

It wasn't until he'd stopped by the lift that he turned and looked at her properly. Before, all he'd seen was a mass of blonde hair.

_Rose.

* * *

_

He wasn't supposed to meet her yet. He _couldn't_ meet her yet.

Not this soon. Please, by all that was sacred in the universe, not this soon!

He wasn't ready. Couldn't contemplate the task ahead of him; what taking her on would involve.

Rose would not be just any companion. She was the companion in whose hands would lie his very life. All his lives. And he was the incarnation whose task it was to prepare her for what was to come. To train her, mould her, help her understand the secrets of the universe and the Time Lords. So that, when his next incarnation gave her the task she had to complete, jumping into each of his past lives to collect their psychic imprints, she would be equal to it.

He. The broken wreck of a Time Lord who could barely hold himself together on a good day.

He stumbled through what might just about pass for a conversation with her, marvelling at the difference between this teenage shop-girl and the intelligent, wise beyond her years woman who'd navigated his past lives with seeming ease, getting him out of difficult situations, actually saving his life once and leaving him breathless with her ability, her knowledge and the very essence of who she was.

Yet he could see in her, as she tried to come up with explanations for the animated, murderous shop dummies, signs of the woman she would become. After all, most humans who'd been through what she had would be falling apart. Screaming, crying, cowering wrecks. Not Rose.

All the same, it wouldn't do.

He just _couldn't_.

So, when he got her to a safe level, he ordered her to go home. Yet couldn't resist calling her back just to see her again, with the excuse of asking her name. And of introducing himself.

Not that it mattered. He had no intention of seeing her again yet. Not for a very long time.

He knew exactly where she was, after all. London, 2005. All right, he didn't know where she lived, but finding her wouldn't be difficult. Give it a decade or six, maybe, and he'd be ready. He'd come back for her then.

Goodbye for now, Rose, he told her silently as he pulled the door to behind her.

* * *

But, of course, it wasn't as simple as that. It could never be as simple as that.

He met her again the very next morning. He could almost suspect that Time, or the universe, or the TARDIS, even, was playing tricks on him.

He followed a signal. It led him to her doorstep. And she refused to let him walk away.

Hard to believe that one human female, a nineteen-year-old, could make a Time Lord do anything he didn't want to. But then he'd always been a sucker for a determined woman. And Rose Tyler was very determined.

Anyway, she was Rose. His Rose. And, despite his better judgement, despite his burning need to put at least three galaxies or five centuries between him and her, he found himself drawn into her world. Answering her questions. Saving her life, for a second time.

And then, when he finally got some sense and left, she accused him of swanning off and ran after him.

She was sceptical when he gave her more honest answers than before about the living plastic. Didn't believe him but, as he pointed out to her, she was still listening. Didn't run away even when he seized her hand again and then went off into his riff about the Earth turning. She just stood there, listening, watching him with an air of complete fascination.

Yes; while she was younger and far more naïve than the Rose of his past lives, she was definitely the same woman.

Actually, not much younger. About a year at most.

If he was stupid enough to take her with him now, this ninth life really would be the shortest on record.

But he was _not_ that stupid.

"That's who I am, Rose Tyler. Now go home and forget me," he instructed her, and walked off, leaving her standing there.

* * *

Could he get away from her? Not a chance.

There he was, minding his own business, still trying to track down the Nestene's transmitter, and suddenly bingo! His screwdriver detected another plastic 'person'. He followed the signal into a wine bar sort of place, only to see Rose Tyler sitting at a table with the plastic man. And the stupid sodding human hadn't even noticed that she was sitting opposite a living dummy.

The Rose he knew from his past - from his future - would do better than that.

He pushed that irritation aside. It wasn't as if he was planning on taking her with him yet.

The immediate problem was the plastic creature. It was very quickly clear why it had taken over what had to be Rose's boyfriend's body. The Nestene had again latched onto Rose's tenuous connection to him. But he could deal with it. One champagne cork and a quick wrestling off of the creature's head later and the restaurant was in uproar.

And Rose proved herself to be less of a stupid ape than he'd been imagining. Quick-thinking, she set off the fire-alarm, causing the kind of panic which made it easier for them to get out, even with the headless creature following them and causing destruction in its path.

He had no choice, then, but to bring her into the TARDIS. Even if she did take a while to catch on, and the first time she walked in she ran out again. The second time, she was obviously desperate, so she stayed. And then impressed him by working out that the ship, and therefore he himself, were alien.

Nice one, Rose.

Until she started to fall apart, and he realised that she was upset over the fate of her boyfriend. The human whose body had been taken over by the Nestene, and whose facsimile-head was melting on his console.

She really needed to get her priorities right.

* * *

Why would he ever have thought that Rose Tyler would make a good companion? She was useless. She was getting in his way, wittering on about that boyfriend of hers and whether she should call his mother.

What did it _matter_?

Unless he found the Nestene's transmitter, all of this pathetic little human race was going to die anyway. Why couldn't she see that?

He really didn't have time for this.

And asking about his _accent_, of all things! What did it _matter_ what he sounded like?

He simply couldn't picture this human ever being able to do what the Rose he'd met eight times in his past had managed to do. Maybe it wasn't her. Maybe that Rose was from an alternate reality or something...

No. He sighed. It was her. Which meant that he had an impossible task ahead of him. And not very much time in which to do it.

Well, wasn't that just _fantastic_.

And then she stunned him. _She_ found the transmitter. Had to point it out to him three times, too. What an idiot.

Running with her then across the bridge to the London Eye. Holding her hand in his. The two of them, hurtling into danger, and laughing as they went.

Yes. This was Rose. This was his Rose. And, gripping her hand tightly, he remembered catching her as she tumbled into his TARDIS, the last time he'd seen her. Dancing with her, holding her in his arms. Holding her, his arm wrapped around her, in the butterfly room as they talked briefly about what lay ahead. As he tried to help her prepare to meet _this_ him, the one she would lose. The one she was going to see again after having lost him.

_Him_.

Rose Tyler, this young, impetuous, still ignorant human, would come to care about him so much that she would look as if she'd lost her best friend, the single most important person in her world, after he died. Yet she would stay with the next him, his tenth incarnation.

How could she possibly come to care about him so much? About _this_ him? He had no illusions about himself, especially not now. He was broken. Damaged. Impatient and bad-tempered beyond almost anything he'd been before, except spells during his seventh life. He wasn't fit company for anyone right now. If she came with him, he'd drive her away within days. Hours, maybe.

But then, he wasn't going to take her with him now. Later. Many, many years later. When he felt ready.

His resolve hardened when, once underground, she found her boyfriend and gave more attention to fussing over that useless, cowering, idiot bloke than on what they needed to do. Well, obviously, what he needed to do.

But he couldn't let her get killed. When he was trapped himself, he knew the important thing was to get her out of there. His own future - and the integrity of the universe - depended on it.

After all, for all he knew, maybe this was when she lost him. Not that it would explain her sadness about it. Regardless, he shouted at her to get away, get out of there.

Only she didn't. Instead, she saved him.

* * *

He was still going to leave. It wasn't time now. He wasn't taking her with him yet.

She and that useless ape of a boyfriend - and what did she have to go and have a boyfriend for, anyway? - were leaving. He'd come back for her, of course. Maybe in a week or so on her timeline. A long, _long_ time into his own future.

The boyfriend ran, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to escape the TARDIS. Almost pissing himself, he was. What a useless lump. What on earth did she see in him?

He should turn and leave. She was fussing over the boyfriend now. The boyfriend who looked at him, as he stood in the TARDIS doorway, as if he were some kind of monster. What a berk. And Rose was actually dating him?

He should just go. Yet something inside him didn't want to let him leave without getting her attention one last time.

So, as she turned to look at him, he gave her a superior grin. The _I'm a brilliant Time Lord_ look. Not, of course, that she had a clue what he was, or that it would mean anything to her if he told her. "Nestene Consciousness?" He snapped his fingers. "Easy."

She stared back at him. "You were useless in there. You'd be dead if it wasn't for me." And her own smile was very superior. Proud of herself. She'd saved his life, and she knew it.

"Yes, I would," he conceded. "Thank you."

And she looked straight back at him, a smile on her face. As if she'd actually enjoyed the danger, the excitement. And now he knew beyond any doubt. This was his Rose, saviour of the last Time Lord.

And he gave in. Right in that second, he conceded defeat. He wasn't going anywhere without her.

It wasn't as if he had any choice, really - or that was how it felt. Okay. So the Fates had decided that his ninth life was to be even shorter than he could've imagined. Who was he to argue with Fate?

He leaned against the open door, trying to adopt a casual pose. That way she'd never see how much it mattered. How important it was that she say yes.

He took a deep breath. "Right, then. Best be off. Unless... I don't know," he added, and he could hear the longing in his voice, even as he tried to make it sound casual. "You could come with me."

And the crazy thing was that it wasn't just for his own future - his knowledge of the role she would play it in - that he was asking. It was for _himself_.

He wanted her with him. Wanted this young, naïve, daring, vivacious, _alive_ woman to teach him how to live again. It seemed like an impossible task, knowing how cold, how dead he was inside. But, if anyone could do it, Rose Tyler could. And he didn't want to wait another second to have her with him.

She looked intrigued. Tempted. But she didn't say anything.

"This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe. Free of charge."

And the boyfriend - the cowering idiot on the ground - reached for her. "Don't. 'E's an alien. 'E's a... a _thing_."

A thing.

Was that what she thought? Pain coursed through him. He felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut.

He was a Time Lord. Member of one of the most advanced species in the universe. Next to Gallifreyans, and the Time Lords in particular, these humans were primitive. Hadn't even learned to walk upright yet. And this pathetic excuse for a human had called him a thing.

But he refused to show how the insult affected him. "He's not invited." And still he watched her, hoping that the need he felt ashamed of feeling wasn't showing. Had he ever tried so hard before to persuade anyone to travel with him?

Surely not. Most of the time, he hadn't had a choice in the matter. Hadn't been able to get rid of them. Between stowaways and people trapped out of their own time or their own planet, or companions forced on him by others, he'd had no choice but to take them with him.

Now, he was actually offering this human the opportunity of a lifetime. Leaving aside the fact that, for the sake of his own future, he had to persuade her to come with him, he'd never actually had to work so hard to talk someone into travelling with him before.

And still she was hesitating. Saying nothing.

"What d'you think?"

Still nothing. She was staring at him, and now he was starting to wonder if she thought he was crazy to be asking in the first place. Why would she want to jump into a time machine with some bloke she barely even knew? Who could kidnap her and take her anywhere?

Yet he had to keep trying. So much depended on it.

"You could stay here. Fill your life with work and food and sleep... Or you could go... anywhere."

Finally, she spoke. "Is it always this dangerous?"

He couldn't help but grin at that. If she only knew... "Yeah."

And he had her. He was sure of it. She was inching towards him, the mention of danger having attracted her. Caught her attention. She loved it. Was thrilled by it. Showed how boring her life here was. What travelling with him would do for her. _Had_ done for her, by the time he met her in his past lives.

But then that _pathetic_ boyfriend got in the way again. Wrapped himself around her legs - did he have any idea how much of a whinging baby he looked?

"Yeah, I can't," she said, and actually looked back at the pathetic lump. "I gotta go... Find my mum, and someone's gotta look after this stupid lump."

At least she knew what the bloke was. But she was saying no. He couldn't believe it. She was saying no.

And the sense of disappointment was crushing.

He should have been relieved. He hadn't wanted to take her now, after all. Now, he had the perfect excuse for leaving her here. Going and making something of this life of his, instead of accepting that he was hurtling towards his own death. And finding a way to come to terms with his past, with the grief that still ripped him apart inside, before he took this vibrant, courageous woman with him and destroyed her with what he was.

But he wasn't relieved.

Finally, he managed to say, "Okay. See you around."

Now, she was looking at him as if she regretted her decision. So he hesitated before retreating back inside the TARDIS.

_Go on, Rose. Say yes. You know you want to._

But she didn't. And, because he had to, because he was beginning to feel like a twat just standing there looking at her, he went back inside and closed the door.

He'd failed. His very first test, and he'd failed. Rose had said no.

* * *

It was bound to happen someday; he just wasn't expecting someday to be right _now_. Alarms set up a cacophony of sound within the echoing console room and he hit the console with an open fist. "No, no, no, no!" he repeated, willing his ship, his poor ship, to hold on just a little bit longer.

Stupid of him. Almost ape-worthy to have forgotten. The Time Lords were gone; erased from time and space. With the Time Lords, so went the Eye of Harmony and his ship's power source. He was, literally, running out of fuel _and_ time.

Ironic that. He was a Time Lord, but time was running out. He could coax the TARDIS only so far before she would shut down. There had to be something he could do. There had to be some means of gathering the necessary temporal energy sans the Eye.

He could almost hear the slow ticking of a clock as his time counted slowly down to zero. There wasn't much left in the old girl. One more trip, one more destination, and that was it. But where to go?

Temporal energies. He considered the words carefully, repeating them in his mind. He had encountered them before, far away from Gallifrey. If only he could remember. The War, and regeneration, had wrecked havoc upon his memories. There had to be something. Some place. Some when. _Something_.

The answer came rather suddenly. "The Rift!" Of course! How could he have forgotten?

He cajoled the dying ship to make one last trip – to Paris, France, 1871.

All he would have to do was open the engines, let the energies flood the collectors, and he would be off doing what he did best. Travelling through time and space. Alone.

Because Rose had said 'no', and he had no idea how he could convince her to say 'yes'.

* * *

He remembered this café. The pressed linen tablecloths, the fine china, the waiter named Pierre. He remembered it well. It was the picture-perfect location for a picture-perfect day. At least, it would have been as such save for the threatening grey clouds and the distinct lack of perfection in his life.

He regarded the cup of tea – when would the French learn how to make a decent cuppa? – with a bitter expression. It had obviously been too soon. Too soon to ask. Too soon to expect her to come. But why did it hurt? Why did he suddenly want companionship again? No, he corrected himself grimly, not companionship. He wanted Rose.

"One of those days, I take it?" a very familiar voice asked. "Not to worry, had a few of those myself. Suppose you could even say that I had one of those lives."

The Doctor lifted his head, blinking in shock as he recognised his seventh self settling into the opposite chair. "What are you doing here?" Oh. Wait. Paris. The Rift. Ace.

"Thought I could do with a nice cuppa. Though, from the looks of things, the tea doesn't really help when it's one of those days, does it?" A Scottish burr coloured the other Time Lord's words as he regarded him with a shrewd expression.

"Not sure it's strong enough. Or that it's what I really need." At least it was his seventh and not, Rassilon help him, his sixth or eighth selves.

The smaller man hummed under his breath before reaching into his pocket. A bit of twine, a crumpled receipt, and a multi-coloured ball later, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. A silver flask was extended toward him. "Try that. Might help. Might not. But it doesn't hurt to try."

He accepted the carafe, recognising it as being one of Benny's. Then again, Bernice Summerfield had tended to have quite a few of them, either on her person or in her room. Knowing himself, which he did, he must've taken it from her when she wasn't paying attention. She always had drunk too much for her own good. He sighed and poured a small amount of the amber liquid into his mug before returning the container to the other Time Lord.

Without bothering to put in an order for water or a cup of tea, his past self twisted off the cap and held the flask up in a salute. "To lost companions."

He blinked. How could his previous self have...Oh. Ace. This was when he lost Ace, or, rather, she grew up and left him behind. It was not the same, not really. Rose had said 'no'. "To lost companions." He repeated the toast.

Neither Doctor made a move to drink.

"Does it get easier?" the other Time Lord asked with a mournful look at the flask. "Losing a companion? Even when they walk away on their own?"

Even when they say no? Even when their coming with you will save the universe? He shook his head. "Never does." Nothing did. Not when he was the last. Even seeing his past self was a painful reminder of opportunities lost.

He could say something. He could change it all. Save Gallifrey. Save the Time Lords. All it would take would be a few words to his past self. Then the aching blackness in his mind would be gone. Then he would no longer be alone.

However, he knew he would say nothing. He was, and ever would be, Time's Champion. Even for himself, even for the most selfish of reasons, he would not rewrite this history. There were too many consequences.

The Brigadier's words returned to him. He was still alive. That had to be enough. For now. Until, of course, he fulfilled his destiny.

When he spoke again, he had almost forgotten his companion's presence. "There are so many out there. So many who left, so many who said no. So much untapped potential, especially when I know what they could achieve if they just tried." How could she say 'no?' He had offered her the universe, and she'd chosen to stay with her useless boyfriend. What did that say about his destiny? Maybe he was too damaged for even that. Too damaged, too broken, to even convince a silly ape to join him and become more than what she was.

His past self's gaze seemed to sharpen at his words. "Time."

"What?"

"It's the great divider. Separates one moment from the next. Separates one destiny from another. There are so many possibilities – what was, what will be, and what could be. There's one other thing that it can do." The small Time Lord leaned forward on the table, his brilliant blue eyes fierce. "You're Rose's Doctor. Or you're about to become her Doctor."

He was tempted to deny the words, but decided against it. "I might be."

"Did you mention - " His past self grinned. " - that the TARDIS can also travel in time?"

He blinked, reviewing mentally just what he had told her before he had left. Had he mentioned that it travelled through time? No. He had just said it could take her anywhere. Not anywhen. He was just as stupid as the silly apes walking about on this planet.

The younger Doctor rested back on the chair, a self-satisfied expression on his face. "Then what're you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Time waits for no man. Or Time Lord."

* * *

And so here he was again. About ten seconds after he'd left her there.

He felt like a stupid prick, coming back like this. She was going to laugh at him - or worse, call him a stalker. Which was what he felt like.

And yet he had to try. For the sake of his future and past selves. For his own sake. He needed Rose Tyler.

Hands shaking, he opened the TARDIS door again. The monitor had shown him that she was still there. Still with that boyfriend - walking away, holding his hand. But, as she heard the TARDIS returning, she halted. Turned back, a curious, even possibly hopeful expression on her face.

A good sign, maybe?

Not even giving her a chance to react to his return, he was already speaking as he stuck his head around the door.

"By the way, did I mention? It also travels in time."

There was the faintest hint of a smile on her face - an excited look. But, this time, he refused to wait to see her reaction. He wasn't going to beg again. He'd come back for her. That would have to be enough. Because, if this didn't work, he didn't know what he was going to do.

So, because he couldn't watch, he disappeared inside again to wait.

Seconds later, she ran inside, a wide grin on her face, pushing the door shut behind her. She didn't stop running until she was beside him at the console.

And that, he knew in that instant, was exactly where she belonged.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 2: Faltering

**Chapter 2: Faltering**

This couldn't be her.

This couldn't possibly be the Rose Tyler who went into his past, risking her life, taking chances, almost sacrificing everything that she was to save him. Who made it clear every step of the way that it was his destiny that was important.

The Rose Tyler whose love for him - the Doctor, whichever incarnation - took his breath away every time he met her.

Sitting there, criticising him, complaining about the TARDIS. Objecting that it got inside her head and he hadn't asked her permission.

How could this possibly be the same Rose who saved his life in his fifth incarnation by communicating with the TARDIS? Using her telepathic circuits as if she and not he were attuned to her?

Of course, she was the same Rose. There was no doubt about that.

All of which told him that he had a lot of work to do. And not a lot of time in which to do it.

It would be so much easier if she'd just shut up and accept him as he was. What did it _matter_ where he was from? Who his people were? What his name was? She barely knew him, and she was expecting him to share all sorts of private, personal information with her. No chance.

This? This irritating, annoying, stupid ape who just wouldn't shut up, the same person who raced with him and Ace across Hutosa?

Yes, he had a lot of work to do. And he could see it wasn't going to be easy. Why did it have to be him?

* * *

Bad enough that he was having to cope with a Rose Tyler who clearly was far from ready to be a Time Lord's companion. Bad enough that he was rapidly realising he'd made a crass, stupid mistake in taking her to see the end of her world. Now, everything was going wrong. Someone had sabotaged the space station.

Already, the steward was dead. The sun-filter programme was malfunctioning. And the computer was telling him that there was another sun filter somewhere on the station which was also guaranteed to be going the same way.

He found it - on the observation deck where he'd been earlier. Where Rose Tyler had asked him all those questions. Had refused to shut up, even though he'd made it bloody obvious that he didn't want to answer.

"Anyone in there?" he yelled. No point wasting his time trying to jiggery-poke the control panel if there wasn't. He had to try to get to the bottom of what was causing this. Who those spider-creatures belonged to.

"Let me out!" a familiar, but frightened voice yelled.

He sighed. "Oh, well, it _would_ be you."

Scared. And this was the same person who fearlessly fought vampires with him on Lunatia?

And yet...

Fairness warred with impatience as he fought frantically with the sun-filter programme. She'd only just met him a couple of days ago. She'd run into his TARDIS less than an hour ago. What did she know about other worlds, alien species, the kind of life-threatening danger he faced on a daily basis?

Many humans he knew would be screaming and sobbing by this stage. Rose might be yelling at him to get her out, even cursing him, but she wasn't cowering in terror, wetting her knickers like that stupid boyfriend of hers.

She had a kind of courage that, in a way, he had to admire. She'd shown it, too, when she hadn't allowed his bad temper to intimidate her. When she'd offered the olive branch to end their argument. And when she hadn't allowed Jabe and himself to talk about her as if she wasn't there - and, at the same time, hadn't clung to him even if she was finding all the aliens very _alien_.

* * *

He admired her courage later, too, when instead of clinging to him when he arrived back on the main observation deck after fixing the cooling system she recognised something in his expression and let him walk right past her. He had to break the news of Jabe's death to her people, after all. And then when he returned to Rose - expecting to be greeted with complaints and demands to know what was going on - her first question was "You all right?"

Amazing. She'd been locked in that other observation deck. The way the cooling system had been spiralling out of control, he'd bet the exoglass was shattering where she was. Here, too, by the look of the dead and the smell of burning permeating the place. She must've come close to being fried herself.

Maybe he was under-estimating her.

* * *

And that was what made him decide, on their return to Earth - a trip taken to show her that her planet was safe after all, that everything familiar to her still existed - to let her see why he'd reacted the way he had to her questions. To let her understand him, just a little.

After all, if she was going to travel with him she needed to know something of this stuff. Needed to know what subjects to avoid, so as not to trip over painful memories... not to risk incurring his foul moods.

Besides, the Rose of the future, the Rose of his past, knew all this stuff. He was sure of it. She'd never mentioned it - she'd been very careful to avoid mentioning anything of his future - but there'd been times in their past encounters that he'd sensed there was something she wasn't saying. Something important. Something that would change him utterly.

It had been even more apparent when she'd met him in his eighth incarnation. The expression that had crossed her face briefly when he'd mentioned the memory crystals.

He'd known, in that life, the day that Rose had literally dropped into his arms, that trouble was coming. Romana had been sure of it. And, later, Rose had told him that there were two disasters coming. And that she didn't think she could stop either of them.

Rose Tyler, stop the Time War? A bitter laugh almost escaped him as he followed her out of the TARDIS.

That was one of the disasters she'd been referring to. Of course, he still had to encounter the second. That had to be what would make his next incarnation send her on her quest.

Something to do with his death-print.

He'd puzzled over that for a long time, until finally, in the aftermath of the Time War, had concluded that there was no point worrying about trouble until it actually came. Knowing that something bad was coming had made no difference when it came to the destruction of Gallifrey, after all.

Rose had known about the Time War when he'd met her last. And so he told her, briefly, with as little detail as possible, with as little emotion as possible. Not meeting her eyes. He couldn't bear the expression he knew he'd see: curiosity, sympathy, empathy.

He had no wish to satisfy the first, and didn't deserve the latter two. Jabe's sympathy had been more than he could bear, more than he deserved, though he'd managed to thank her for it.

And then he had to offer her the choice. Would she stay with him, or had he frightened her too much?

Why had this become his responsibility? Why had Fate decreed that he should be the one to nurture and train this nineteen-year-old human to be the Time Lord's champion, to save the universe? He wasn't up to the job. He wasn't even capable of looking after himself right now.

He had to ask her. "You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?"

Her hesitation alarmed him far more than it should have. After all, if she said yes then he had time. Time to try to rebuild his shattered life. To learn to live again. To understand how to live with himself, before he tried to share his TARDIS with someone else.

And to get some mileage out of this ninth life - because there was one thing he knew for sure about Rose Tyler. Her appearance in his life foreshadowed his death.

Her complete non sequitur about chips took him by surprise, as did his sudden realisation that he fancied chips, too. And when she told him that he _would_ be getting her back inside the TARDIS he actually felt relieved. Happy.

The teasing grin on her face, the way she grabbed at his arm, brought back memories, too. The pain vanished, to be replaced by warmth. Joy. And the recollection of the way he'd come to feel about this woman through her appearances in his lives.

She was dear to him. Very dear. Even though she wasn't yet the woman he had met in his past lives, she would become her. Now, he could see that. Even if she had some way to go before she'd be capable of such a task, such a level of understanding, this was _Rose_. And he wasn't alone any more.

Arm in arm, grins stretched across both their faces, they walked off to find chips.

* * *

He'd sent her to bed, dealing with her amazement at the sheer size of the TARDIS and all the rooms it possessed as he showed her to a bedroom. Of course, she'd been to the wardrobe earlier, but somehow in her excitement at the prospect of seeing the past she hadn't seemed to wonder at the interior.

Another trip, another near-disaster.

And another stumble across the Time War.

It could so easily have been true. The War had caused so many ripples, so many disturbances. So many dead, so many left crippled, destitute, their homelands devastated. So many orphans, widows, homeless, maimed. So many left alone.

And he, the most alone of all. He, the one who most deserved it.

The Gelth. A species he'd never heard of before, though he certainly intended to find out more about them now.

Their story had been so plausible. Their planet destroyed, their bodies injured beyond repair. Seeing homes, seeking permanent bodies which would let them live, instead of a half-existence in gaseous form.

The story probably was true, at least in part. They could well be victims of the Time War. For it to be otherwise, they'd have to have known who he was and why mention of the Time War would instantly gain his sympathy. He might be well-known across some of the universe, but that was a notoriety he'd never sought and tried to play down. No reason why the Gelth should know of him. Even if they did, no reason why they should associate him with the Time War.

The Time Lords were dead. Those who knew they were dead did not know that there was a survivor. One solitary remaining Time Lord.

Even some of those who knew of the Doctor didn't know that he was a Time Lord.

So, survivors of the Time War, possibly. Innocents? Probably not. They'd meant to do harm. They'd meant to invade. To usurp. To kill.

And, once again, he'd so nearly got Rose killed.

This time, only Charles Dickens' intervention had saved them. As he'd always thought, the writer had one of the greatest minds of his time. The solution had been simplicity itself, and effective. He should have thought of it himself. He, the most intelligent being in the universe, the sole surviving Time Lord, the Oncoming Storm, the Doctor. He'd been a quivering wreck in a dungeon, clinging to the hand of a nineteen-year-old human as if she were the only thing separating him from painful death.

She'd been far braver than he.

Yet more proof that she was his Rose, his saviour, his future.

And that made him think of something else. The Rose of his past - this Rose's future - knew this had happened. She'd known, when she met all of his previous incarnations, that his actions, his gullibility, his reckless arrogance had almost got her killed.

She'd never said a word.

Of course, she'd known only too well not to talk about his future; she'd shown that in her conversations with his last incarnation. But it wasn't even that failure to say anything. It was the fact that she seemed to bear no grudges at all. As if it had never happened.

He'd got companions into trouble before. Endangered their lives before. Some of them had left him because of it, escaping before they actually did end up dead. Others hadn't let him forget it, hadn't trusted him again afterwards.

Rose... Rose had behaved as if she trusted him - any of him, all of him - implicitly. And yet as if she saw it as her role to steady him, to caution him, to help him, to save him.

And then he saw it. Saw what was different. What was _unique_ about Rose as a companion.

She and her Doctor were a team. Wherever they were, whenever they were, whoever he was, she and he were a team. Equals. Sometimes he leading and she following, but sometimes she leading and he following. Sometimes he teaching and she learning, but equally sometimes she was the teacher and he the student.

As he should have been today. He should have listened to her caution instead of hectoring her about different moralities and threatening to take her home. Yet, even when it had all gone wrong, she hadn't blamed him. She'd been the one to tell him that it wasn't his fault. She'd been the one to give him courage when he'd fallen apart.

He'd taken her on as a companion so conscious of the need to teach her, to train her for what was to come. He'd actually resented that fact. Had been convinced that she had so much to learn - too much - before she could take on the task that lay ahead of her, and been unconvinced that she could do it.

Who was the one who had much to learn? Who was teaching who?

He shook his head at such folly. He was the Time Lord, after all. He was the centuries-old scholar and scientist and meddler and soldier... and fool. She was a mere child, a baby.

But with a brave heart, a generous soul and a compassionate spirit. And more good sense than he'd given her credit for.

Rose Tyler, the Time Lord's champion; yes, he could see it.

But, first and foremost, she was a human teenager, a young woman barely out of childhood and one who'd had a baptism of fire into this world of time and space travel, of righting wrongs and saving the universe. And he hadn't even brought her home in time for tea.

So, perhaps that should be the next stop. Home. Rose's home. Not to leave her - at least, he hoped she wouldn't want to leave - but to give her a breathing space. Allow her time to catch her breath, to think, to reflect on it all, before he swept her off again. More adventures, more journeys, more discovery - and more education in what it meant to be a Time Lord and what it meant to be the defender of a Time Lord.

To help her prepare for her future and his past... and to give him reason to live again.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 3: Saving the World

**Chapter 3: Saving the World **

Twelve hours, twelve months.

It was a bit of a difference, all right. And 'sorry' probably didn't really cut it. In fact, judging by the look on Rose's mother's face, not to mention the missing person posters littering the flat, it didn't even come close.

He'd never been quite this careless before, had he?

But then, would he even know? He'd never exactly offered his companions visits home before. They came with him and they stayed or left. They didn't get weekend familial visits as part of the deal.

He _had_ somehow never managed to get Tegan back to Heathrow. And, in the end, not even to the correct year, either. And he had a sneaking suspicion that he might not have left Sarah-Jane exactly where he'd been supposed to, either.

So, yeah, he could understand Rose's mother's anger. Though the slap was a bit much, wasn't it?

* * *

The problem was that now she might decide to stay put. As she told him, she couldn't put her mother through that again. Understandable, but not what he wanted to hear. 

She was his companion now. He'd chosen her, taken her from this ordinary life of hers and introduced her to the stars. Well, technically he hadn't shown her the _stars_ yet, but he would. Soon. Next, in fact. Once he could get her back into the TARDIS. Which clearly wouldn't be just yet.

Ironic to think that a day or so ago he'd have been relieved to have her want to stay at home. Relieved that he could put off taking her with him for now, that he had the freedom to swan off and travel around for another few decades before coming back to get her.

Course, he could do that now. It was obvious that she wanted to stay around here for a while. He could suggest to her that she take a week, maybe, to reassure her mum that she was okay, to catch up with her friends and so on, and he'd come back for her after that. She wouldn't have to know how long it'd been for him.

He could... but he wouldn't.

She was his now.

Even if she was semi-pissed off with him for her missing year, even if she was clearly frustrated at not being able to talk about her experiences with anyone. Even with all of that, her natural sense of humour kept surfacing. She was able to laugh about the idea of her mother on the TARDIS - no way! - and about the fact that he'd got slapped. And even the little slip that revealed his age - well, something close to his age - didn't faze her.

Looking at her now, the vivacity of her expression, the laughter in her eyes, he could see echoes of the Rose he'd met in his past. She still looked more innocent, obviously newer to this whole thing. But the resilience, the humour, the courage and the ingenuity of his Rose, the Rose of his future and his past, was there.

He opened his mouth to speak as she laughed again, her hair blowing gently around her face in the breeze. Then shut it again abruptly as he realised what he'd been about to do. He'd been about to say _"Remember when we..." _

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The _last_ thing he could do was give her any hint of what lay in her future. This was going to be tougher than he'd imagined. Having to keep a careful guard on his tongue, on his reactions, at all times, making sure that he never, ever let slip that he'd known her before, that her future was important to his past and to his future.

Time, such a fragile thing. And he, a Time Lord, should know that better than anyone.

Guard his tongue. Never, ever say anything to her that he might regret. That was the best way.

Then all other thoughts were driven from his mind as a giant spaceship cruised overhead, only just missing the rooftops around them, and they had to duck.

_Fantastic!

* * *

_

Well, if she'd wanted excitement, she was getting it. And she didn't even have to do more than step outside her own front door. Or, more accurate, watch it on TV. Aliens, invading the Earth, in Rose's own time, her own country, her own _city_.

Just as long as it didn't make her decide that she didn't need to travel the universe in a time machine to get her fill of adventure.

Not that that seemed likely. He'd been pathetically pleased when she'd followed him out of the flat to demand to know where he was going, seeming afraid that he was going to run off and leave her.

Yeah, he did have plans that didn't include her. But that was temporary. When he left this time, this place, he had no intention of going without Rose Tyler. No matter what means he had to employ, she would be in the TARDIS at his side.

So he gave her a TARDIS key. It was kind of symbolic, really. He wasn't just giving her a means of getting into the TARDIS on her own - and that was showing her a huge measure of trust, which he wasn't sure she entirely appreciated - he was also giving her a piece of himself. Linking their lives in a way which was quickly becoming irrevocable.

As he walked away, down the stairs and towards the TARDIS, he couldn't help wondering whether he'd still have given her the key if he didn't know how closely her life would become entwined with his.

* * *

But there were complications. There were always complications. 

The idiot boyfriend was back. The one who'd called him a _thing_. Trying to lay on the guilt - Rose had been missing for a year, the kid had been called in for questioning by the police. People had thought that he'd murdered her.

Stupid apes. Girl goes missing, they always assume it's the boyfriend.

Okay, sometimes it was. But surely it had to be obvious, just by looking at this particular specimen of _homo sapiens_, that he didn't have the wit or the intelligence to get away with murder? He was the sort who was more likely to get himself killed than kill someone else.

He'd be all over Rose like a rash in a minute. He was already telling her how much he'd missed her, that he wasn't seeing anyone else, that he wanted her back... oh, she wasn't going to _kiss_ him, was she?

He interrupted them before things could go any further. That wasn't jealousy he'd felt; of course it wasn't. He'd just been a bit worried that Rose might actually start feeling sorry for the idiot, on top of the way she'd already talked about her mother, and decide that she'd have to stay here after all. He couldn't have that.

Anyway, there were more important things to do. Like find out who the real aliens were - wonders would never cease, idiot-boy Rickey had a good point there. Who were they? Where were they hiding? What was their plan? What did they want with the Earth, anyway? And why dress up a pig as an alien and crash-land it in the Thames?

Just what was going on?

* * *

And then he found out. 

The top alien experts in the country - the cream of UNIT - all dead. Aliens at the heart of government. And the only person who knew what was really going on was him.

No-one was going to believe him. The police had been given orders to shoot him on sight.

So, was this it? Was this how he would die? How Rose would lose him?

But it was too soon. Far too soon. She knew nothing; nothing about his life, what he did, what he stood for, nothing about the mysteries of Time and the universe. She was brave and intelligent and willing, but that wasn't enough. He still had much work to do with her.

Well, maybe the next him would get to do it. Just a shame he probably wouldn't get to say goodbye.

Luck, a bit of cunning and fast legwork kept him alive, though, and he caught up with Rose. And the other human he'd picked up - an MP, who actually seemed pretty intelligent for once. And there they were, the three of them, locked inside the Cabinet Room, trying to figure out a way to save the world and, if possible, save themselves too.

The Slitheens' plan: cunning in its simplicity, devastating in its effects. The Earth as molten scrap-heap; the universe's sale of the century. The Earth's population: dispensable. Utterly disposable, like yesterday's newspaper. These aliens obviously didn't believe in recycling.

Trapped in one room, no means of communicating with the outside world, a world that had no idea what was going to happen to it, the three of them all that stood between the Earth and apocalypse. His brain, Rose's quick intelligence, Harriet Jones' determination.

Just them - and Rose's mobile.

Maybe they could do it, after all.

* * *

He could save the world. 

It was easy, simple. Only thing he could do, really. He was the Doctor. It was what he did. Save the universe, save the world, save a single person. He was the Doctor.

This time, however, wasn't so simple. He could save the world but for one thing. One tiny, yet significant thing.

Rose.

She had chosen this life. She had chosen to travel with him, and would do through his next life. She had chosen him, but now he had to choose. Weigh the chances of survival. The world or Rose.

Rose or the world.

Why did it have to end like this? Was this the time? Was this how Rose would lose him? She had to survive, he knew that. Yet he couldn't see how. There was a solution. Only one. But it meant a choice.

Once again, he had to choose. Life or death. Rose or the world. Gallifrey or the Daleks. Tough and terrible choices, yes, but if he didn't choose, who would? And if he didn't choose, if he waited, she would die. Even if he chose her, she would die. He would die. And, with them, the planet.

He took a deep breath and spoke. "There's a way out."

"What?" Rose turned toward him, her expression incredulous.

"There's always been a way out." In this equation of Rose to the world, he had no choice. The world must win. Had to win. But, it did not mean that he could not regret the choice.

"Then why don't we use it?"

She was so naïve. She had seen so little of his life, experienced far too little to know the truth. He had to make hard choices. And, inevitably, innocent people got stuck in the crossfire. He strode across the room and braced his hands against the table, leaning forward to speak into the speaker phone. "Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe."

He lied. He had never been able to guarantee safety. He had never been able to protect her. She protected him. This life, previous lives, his future life. Didn't matter. She was Rose. His Rose. But, now, she was Jackie's Rose. Not his. Not quite yet. But soon.

"Don't you dare. Whatever it is, don't you _dare_." Jackie's voice sounded frantic, but he ignored her. What could he do? What choice did he have?

None.

"That's the thing, if I don't dare, everyone dies." Just like Gallifrey. Everyone, everything dies. That was the nature of this choice. Just like before.

"Do it." The soft words caused him to look up and he met Rose's determined gaze.

She would do it. Just like that. He could not believe it. "You don't even know what it is. You'd just let me?"

"Yeah."

Such a simple word. Just one word, and she entrusted her life to him. Just like 'run', she said 'yeah'.

"Please, Doctor! Please! She's my daughter, she's just a kid!" Jackie's voice had gained a new sense of desperation. She knew. Rose didn't, but Jackie did. She knew what it might mean. As did he.

Ever the great manipulator. His hands clenched into fists.

"Do you think I don't know that? Because this is my life, Jackie, it's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will." He glared at the speaker phone, as if that were the cause of his troubles rather than the Slitheen.

"Then what're you waiting for?" Rose asked in a soft tone.

Once again, she startled him. He lifted his eyes to meet hers and for a timeless moment there was a perfect understanding between them.

"I could save the world, but lose you," he admitted. However, he didn't mention that if he did nothing he would still lose her. There was no choice. However, that still did not make it an easy decision.

She averted her gaze with a shy smile and he fought the urge to sigh. He could save the world. He would save the world and possibly lose her, and his life, in the process.

His inner thoughts were cut short by the unexpected voice of Harriet Jones. "Except it's not your decision, Doctor. It's mine."

"Who the hell are you?" Jackie asked angrily.

"Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. The only elected representative in this room, chosen by the people, for the people, and on behalf of the people I command you. Do it."

He slowly grinned. It wasn't often, after all, that he got a carte blanche to save the world.

And maybe, just maybe, they would survive.

* * *

Somewhere there was danger. Somewhere there was excitement. That somewhere was anywhere but London.

He tapped the console and sighed. She was back with her mum, back in her too-comfortable life, and he was left staring at the console. Was this what he had become? Was this his destiny? To wait on Rose?

His hands curled into fists as he bowed his head. There were things to do, worlds to see and experience, people to meet through her unfettered eyes. What was happening to him? Before, he never would have waited this long. Before, he never would have given a companion this much leeway, this much free rein, this much...

She was Rose. His Rose, or would soon be, yes. But that did not negate what had happened. What was happening.

Right. Enough of this. He had work to do.

She had said that she couldn't put her mum through that again. She had all but implied that she wouldn't come back, couldn't come back, because of her ties to Earth.

To be tied to one planet, one city, for the rest of her life? That was not Rose. Not his Rose. She belonged to the universe, to him...

She couldn't stay here.

But she might.

And he had asked her if she wanted to stay behind. Had all but implied that she should.

_It's a different morality. Get used to it or go home._

He had brought her home. And, now, he might lose her. He couldn't help himself as his hand reached for the phone. He didn't stop himself from dialling her number. He couldn't stop himself from waiting in breathless anticipation to hear her voice again.

This _was_ what he had become: dependent.

"Hello?"

Another deception, perhaps. Another manipulation. The lie slipped through his lips easily. "Right, I'll be a couple of hours, then we can go." He could never tell her the truth. That he feared she would leave. That he wasn't certain if he could live his life without her. That he was terrifyingly dependent upon her.

"You've got a phone?" She sounded incredulous.

"You think I can travel through time and space and I haven't got a phone?" He laughed as he turned a knob, feeling some of his earlier panic subside at the sound of her voice. "Like I said, couple of hours… I've just got to send out this dispersal..."

He flipped a switch. "There you go. That's cancelling out the Slitheens' advert in case any bargain hunters turn up."

"My mother's cooking."

He froze. The words that tumbled out of his mouth were automatic. No thought was given to them. He knew what she might say. What she would say. "Good! Put her on a slow heat and let her simmer."

She sounded exasperated as she replied, "She's cooking _tea_. For us."

"I don't do that." He never would. Too domestic, too personal, too close. For all that Rose had seen of him, there were pieces of his fractured soul that he could not share. He would not share.

"She wants to get to know you." Her voice had gained a measure of pleading. He knew what she wanted, but this was not something that he could give.

"Tough! I've got better things to do." Like wait. Like worry. Like fear.

"It's just tea."

She deserved some measure of truth. But only some. "Not to me it isn't." It never could be just tea.

"She's my mother."

His response was callous, but immediate. "Well, she's not mine!"

"That's not fair!" Now he had done it. Got her mad. Got her thinking. What was he doing?

"Well, you can stay here if you want!" The words slipped from his lips without thought, without consideration. She could leave. Would leave. Because he drove her away. What sort of man had he become?

He could manipulate her, he knew. With his words, with the merest hint of danger. He could force her to come with him, to forget her desire to protect her mother. He could do that.

"But right now there's this plasma storm brewing in the Horsehead Nebula. Fires are burning ten million miles wide. I could fly the TARDIS right into the heart of it then ride the shock wave all the way out - hurtle right across the sky and end up _anywhere_."

He did.

"Your choice."

He hung up the phone and bowed his head. This was what he was reduced to. Manipulating her because he could not bear to have her leave.

This was what he was: dependent.

This was what he did: manipulate.

This was why: Rose.

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 4: Flawed

**Chapter 4: Flawed**

"I'd know. In here. Feels like there's no-one."

She met his gaze, still concerned for him. Still worried about him, after everything that had happened. Even after he'd almost killed her, her thoughts were for him, not herself.

But then what else should he expect of Rose? Every time he'd met her in his past, he'd seen that empathy. That caring. That understanding of who and what he was.

He'd just never understood that it came from this. Her knowledge that his world would burn, that he'd be left alone, the last Time Lord.

"Just as well I'm not going anywhere, then," she said, and he almost staggered at the rush of emotion that flooded him at that.

It shouldn't have been a surprise, of course. He _knew_ she would stay with him. She had to be with his next incarnation, after all, to get sent on her mission. But still... If he hadn't known about that, he could've been worried that he'd lose her. After all, why would anyone stay with him after today? After everything he'd done, everything she'd seen him become?

It wasn't just that she'd nearly died because he locked her in with a Dalek. He. The one person she should be able to trust to do everything in his power to save her, every time. It was everything she'd seen that he normally kept hidden from her. His anger. His burning rage. His bloodthirsty drive for revenge against a creature that by then was practically helpless.

When would he stop getting everything so bloody wrong?

* * *

_Why do we survive?_

Even now, with the TARDIS' lights dimmed to mimic night for her fragile human inhabitants and centuries away from the Utah bunker, the Dalek's words burned.

_Why do we survive?_

He slowly sank to the floor, resting his arms upon his knees as he stared blankly into the distance.

_Why do we survive?_

He'd almost lost her today. He had almost killed her, universe and future be damned. How could he have done that? How could he have cursed both himself and his previous and future selves to non-existence? For what? To save the ignorant apes of Salt Lake City? To save the lives of Van Statten and what little remained of his staff? Revenge? Kill the Dalek soldier, last remnant of a dead race. And, in the process, he almost killed Rose. No, not killed, _murdered_.

What had he done?

He stared at his hands. Long-boned and strong, they were bathed in the blood of thousands. He had almost added Rose to that number.

_Why do we survive?_

He didn't know any more. He thought he had. He thought he had figured it all out, but he was wrong. He'd survived the War. Survived to find Rose. Survived to almost lose her through his ignorance, his need for vengeance and the greater good. Survived to almost be the cause of his own destruction.

Fitting end for the last Time Lord, no? Dead because of his own stupidity. Dead, because he had not talked about what had happened beyond the brief 'my planet is gone' discussion he had with Rose. Dead, because he had let his wounds from the War fester within him. Dead, because he had been too much of a coward to face his memories. And he had almost taken Rose with him.

Unforgivable. Totally unforgivable. He pushed himself to his feet and returned to the console. Maybe it was time. He set the coordinates.

No. It _was_ time.

The time rotor slowly began to pulse, the familiar wheezing groan of the engines filling the room. He spared a moment's thought towards Rose and Adam, safely asleep in their beds. He planned to be done before they awoke, and as far away from their current destination as possible.

There were some secrets that he had to keep.

This was one of them.

* * *

Darkness crept over the grounds of the Lethbridge-Stewart estate, casting lengthening shadows across the gardens. It was a comforting sight, especially to his weary eyes. The TARDIS formed an anachronistic garden sculpture next to the rhododendrons, but his mind was not on aesthetics. The sound of the engines must have reached the Brigadier's ears.

Provided, of course, that he had chosen a time that Alistair was at home. It would be fitting that he had not. Story of his life.

The low growl of an engine heralded the return of the Brigadier and his wife. He knew that engine. Bessie! Oh, how could he have forgotten?

The familiar yellow roadster pulled to a stop in front of the house, but neither Doris nor the Brigadier seemed to have noticed him standing in the shadows. "I'll get the parcels, Doris."

"Now, don't you start again, Alistair. I can handle a few parcels, you know." Doris picked up one of the bags, giving her husband a look that - even from this distance - seemed to be defiant.

"I know you can." The Brigadier smiled faintly. "I just noticed that we have company. Doctor! Don't dawdle. Get over here and help me bring in the shopping."

He blinked. He thought that he had been invisible. Then he noticed the pointed look Alistair was giving his rhododendrons. Ah. Of course he would notice the TARDIS. "Hello, Alistair. Doris." He greeted them with a warm smile as he crossed the grounds.

"Good to see you again, Doctor."

"Hello, Doctor. You're looking well." Doris smiled brightly at him. "If you two would excuse me, I need to take these inside." Without waiting for a response from either himself or Alistair, she went into the house.

"Next time, can you try to miss the rhododendrons? They tend to be rather sensitive to TARDIS landings." His old friend grinned to let him know that he was not angry.

"Sorry about that." He stopped next to Bessie, resting a hand against the side of the car. It had been a long, long time since he had last seen her.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up again," the Brigadier commented as he hefted parcels from the back of Bessie and into the Doctor's waiting arms. "Or if."

"I promised." He shrugged.

"Not quite," Alistair corrected.

True. He had been rather non-committal. "It was a rough time."

"And now it isn't?"

Yes and no. It was rougher in ways because of the Dalek. Because he had to finally face his past and come to terms with what he had done in the War. It was smoother, though, because of one thing. No, one person. It was smoother because of Rose. She had no idea of what she truly meant to him, all of him. The threads of his sanity were in her hands, and she was oblivious to her power over him. Probably better that way.

He realised that he had yet to answer the Brigadier's question, and shrugged.

Alistair hummed under his breath and ushered him into the house. "Just put those on the counter. Either Doris or I'll deal with them later. Would you care for some tea? Or something stronger?"

He smiled faintly. _Something stronger._ Nothing the human species had made, or had yet to make, would suffice, despite what Benny had always insisted. "Tea would be fine."

The Brigadier nodded, and set a kettle on the stove. "Still an Earl Grey man?"

"Tetley's," he corrected.

"Very good." Silence stretched between them, as if the Brigadier could sense that he was unwilling to talk in the kitchen. Much as he liked Doris, there were some things that she should not hear or have the opportunity to overhear.

The kettle began to whistle, and Alistair finished his preparations for tea. He handed him a mug, gesturing toward the milk and sugar kept on the table in an unspoken invitation. "Would you care to go to my office?"

He nodded once he had finished adding both milk and sugar to his tea. Wordlessly, he followed the Brigadier upstairs and into his study. Light filtered through the blinds, shedding a faint golden glow over the room. This room had always suited Alistair. The wood panelling, the medals on display and the shelves stacked with books all spoke of the history that had combined to form the man before him. He settled into one of the leather-backed chairs and considered the steaming liquid in the mug. His friend was waiting for him to speak, but he wasn't certain how to begin.

How could the devastation be described? How could the ripples of the Time War through both time and space be depicted for a human who had rarely left the tiny and fragile Earth that was his home?

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?" Alistair asked.

"Survive. Live with the knowledge that you've killed? Live with the knowledge that it was your fault? No," he corrected himself with a shake of his head, "your choice. Your decision. To end it in the only way you knew how?"

"Doctor..."

He was beyond hearing. Once he had started, he did not know how to stop. He could never, ever stop. Run. Keep running. Fast as he could, because the big bad wolf was coming and it was him. "How do you live with the knowledge that you've committed genocide?

"I killed them, Alistair. With just a push of a button. I killed them. No more Time Lords. No more Gallifrey. And I did it. Me. An' you know why?"

He laughed, but there was no humour in the sound. It was an expression of all the pain and the guilt that he harboured within him. "For you. For you lot runnin' around on this planet. For all the other silly apes out there, runnin' about livin' their little lives ignorant of the truth that's all around them. It was a War. A Time War. An' it was for the biggest stake of them all. History. Your history. The universe's history. 'Cause if they won, if the Daleks won, it'd be all over. An' I had to choose."

This, then, was how the wall - his only protection against the pain - toppled. Word by word. Bit by bit. Stone by stone. It fell. It started slowly, with just the smallest pebbles at the top. Romana. The War. His home. His people. His actions. Everything dies. Except for him.

A rustle of fabric heralded the Brigadier's movement around the desk. He lifted his head to meet Alistair's sympathetic gaze. "Then you made the right choice. The Daleks could not have been allowed to win."

"How can you say that?" he asked, his eyes haunted with remembered pain. "I _killed_ them! I killed my own people, my own planet!"

"Making the right choice doesn't make it any easier to live with. I know, Doctor. I know what it's like, and it doesn't get any easier."

"Then how do you do it, Alistair? How do you live with yourself?"

The Brigadier smiled, resting a hand on his shoulder. "By remembering all the good that you've done. And you've done so much, Doctor. By remembering your friends, your companions, everyone whose lives you've touched in some way by just being you. By remembering all the times that you righted wrongs for the sake of both this planet and others. By remembering all the lives you've saved. By remembering those planets that still exist because of you. By remembering all those children who grew to be adults and do great things because you were there to give them that opportunity. By remembering, above all else, that you are loved. Because, Doctor, you are. Because you're you."

"And what of those times when I've failed? When I've driven my friends away because I was manipulating them? When I've destroyed planets and people - people that I've cared for - for the sake of some stupid master plan? What of those, Alistair? How can I ignore that?"

"You don't ignore it. You accept it. We've all done things that we've regretted, Doctor. But dwelling on them only belittles the good that you've done. In each of those instances that you mention, I'm certain that in the end you were doing the right thing. Right?"

He nodded. Yes, he had always thought he was doing the right thing. Even when he was not. Even when he had to watch his friends hurt because of it.

"That's who you are, Doctor. We all make mistakes. But only you can choose to learn from them. It's what makes you the most human man that I have ever met. And that is not an insult, no matter what you might say."

His lips quirked into a faint smile. "Maybe. But that doesn't excuse what I've done."

"You had to do what you had to do. You make decisions that I would not wish upon anyone else. That is the nature of hard choices, Doctor. And there is no one else that I would rather trust with them than you."

"Even now? Even after knowing what I've done? You'd still want me to be out there, makin' those choices, without your knowledge? Even if it means your death and the death of every ape on this planet?"

"Yes."

It was such a simple word to have such an impact. He rocked back in the chair, blinking in shock. Yes. Even after everything he had done. Even after Gallifrey's destruction. Even after committing genocide. Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart had said 'yes'.

What had he done to earn such trust? "I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything at all," his old friend advised. "Accept it for the truth. I know you, Doctor. I know you'd be more likely to disregard it for a moment of human whimsy. But it is the truth. I trust you. I trust you to make the right decisions for me, for the human race, and for the entire universe."

"Why?" He didn't understand it.

"Because it doesn't matter what you look like. What matters is what you do. And I've seen your work, Doctor. I've seen what you've done. Been witness to a good number of your deeds. And you know what I've seen? I've seen a man who makes the hard decisions when others won't. I've seen a man who puts others above himself, even when to do so would spare him pain. I've seen a man who tears himself up inside over his perceived wrongs. I've seen a man who I am proud to call a friend. That is who you are, Doctor. And that is why my answer will always be 'yes'."

He knew the Brigadier. He knew that if, at any point, Alistair saw him as a threat to the safety of the planet he would not hesitate to stop him. In any way possible. In _every_ way possible. And yet Alistair did nothing. Instead, he said yes.

Yes.

Sometimes these silly apes astounded him. Their capacity to love, to forgive, and to trust was boundless. He thought that he had found the measure of the human race. He would always be proved wrong.

* * *

The console room seemed brighter to him as he stepped back through the double doors. The TARDIS' lights shed a soft glow on the main controls and he smiled faintly as he patted one of the struts. "You feel better too, don't you, old girl?"

The pitch of the constant hum of the ship seemed to change, as if she were expressing her own agreement with the idea. Alistair was good for that. There was a reason, as ever, that his previous self had chosen him to go to first. A soldier, yes. But an old friend first. The best of friends. Like Rose. And he was exactly what he needed, and always would.

He smiled as he crossed to the console, setting coordinates for their next destination. The future would be best. To show Rose a better future than the one she had already seen. No Daleks. No danger. Just him and her - with Adam the tagalong - travelling through time and space. Maybe, he allowed somewhat reluctantly, show Adam what his species' destiny was supposed to be, and not the filtered view that Van Statten had already shown him.

"Doctor?"

The voice startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned from the pulsing time rotor to smile at Rose. "Yes?"

"Where - " She yawned widely as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. " - are we going?"

"Anywhere you want. Future. Past. Anywhere." He offered her the choice as a token. A request for forgiveness, perhaps.

"Surprise me," she suggested with a brilliant smile.

Once again, he was shocked. In her smile, he could read forgiveness - a forgiveness that he did not deserve. In her smile, he could read that nothing had changed. Like Alistair, she said 'yes'.

"You," he told her as he selected their destination, "will love this." The future. Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. That should do it. Culture, aliens, fabulous restaurants, and bazaars.

No Daleks.

No danger.

Just them. And Adam. But, mostly, just them.

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 5: Past and Future

**Chapter 5: Past and Future**

They were alone again, just the two of them.

Much better. Why she'd ever insisted on that overgrown kid coming along he had no idea. Selfish, immature, narrow-minded Adam. Show him the universe, and first he faints and later all he's interested in is what it can do for him.

Not like Rose. But then, Rose was the best. Always had been, always would be.

His Rose.

When had he started thinking of her as brilliant, as amazing in her own right, instead of continually measuring her against what she would become? What he'd already seen her being in his past?

Rose in the here and now, the Rose he'd taken with him, brought around Time and space, almost got killed, whose hand he held almost on a daily basis. Rose, who'd proved herself to be more than equal to the challenge of being a Time Lord's companion. Rose, who had become essential to his life and well-being, who was slowly reminding him how to be happy. How to live.

Preparing her for what she would do in her future was important, but no longer as important as simply being with her.

She was in bed, asleep by now, no doubt. He'd gone to change his jumper, having stupidly slopped tea down it earlier. Pulling on a clean one, he had a flashback to their earlier exchange.

_"Looks like it's just you and me, then."_

_"Yeah."_

_"Good."_

And it had been good. Better than good. Holding her hand, travelling up to Floor 500 in that elevator, he'd _known_. He loved her. Loved Rose Tyler, shop-girl from the twenty-first century, his companion, the woman who'd saved his life the day after he'd first met her, the woman who was teaching him to live again. Yes, his past selves had come to love her future self, but this was different. He was falling in love with her all over again, for what she was now, not for what she would become.

His Rose.

Not that he could allow her to find out. Safer that way, for so many reasons. And yet, from what he'd been able to tell, the Rose of the future had strong feelings for him. His eighth self, with his gift for precognition and empathy, had seen it. His earlier selves had begun to guess that Rose had been particularly close to one of his future generations, but he'd always assumed that it was the Doctor she was with. His eighth self had known that she'd lost her Doctor, had seen him through a regeneration.

She'd come to terms with it; he'd known that, too. She had to be happy with his next self, otherwise she'd never have accepted his mission. But the thought of seeing _him_ again had almost devastated her.

Maybe they'd been closer than he'd imagined? Maybe he did at some point give in to his feelings for her?

But that felt wrong. She was too young, too innocent of what someone like him could do, had done. He couldn't let her get too close to his darkness.

Leaving his jacket lying on his bed, having taken the sonic screwdriver out of the pocket first, he returned to the console room. There were circuits needing tuning up.

The room wasn't empty. Rose stood there.

"I thought you'd gone to bed, Rose."

She whirled around to face him. And in that instant he knew. She mumbled something incoherent, but she didn't need to say a word. He felt his jaw slacken.

"You're future-Rose, aren't you?" Of course she was. He knew her - this Rose - almost as well as he knew _his_ Rose.

She hadn't changed much; he could see that now. Of course, she looked exactly the same as he'd last seen her, when she'd danced with him and he'd held her in his arms as she'd tried to prepare herself for her next leap. To see _him_ again - the incarnation she'd lost. This was the Rose who'd lost him to death.

She didn't look very different from the Rose asleep in the bedroom down the hallway. Hardly any older, which confirmed what he'd already worked out about this life of his. Her hair a little shorter, styled differently. Sadness in her eyes.

More than sadness; tears were starting to come. _Oh, Rose_. How had this happened? How had she come to care about him so much that losing him had such an impact on her?

"C'mere." He held his arms out to her, striding towards her.

But she pulled away, shaking her head, wrapping her arms around herself. "No! I can't do this." Her voice shook.

Rose, rejecting him? That hurt. The extent of the stab of pain he experienced shook him. But he needed to be understanding. She'd lost him. She'd obviously grieved. Now she had to face him again, and it was bringing all the pain back.

He just held her gaze, trying to convey understanding as well as the love he had for her. "Yes, you can, Rose Tyler. Remember, I only choose the best to travel with me?"

She nodded, obviously still barely managing to hold back emotion.

He moved closer to her. This time, she didn't back away. He cupped her cheek in his palm and used his thumb to brush away the tears that had escaped. "Well, you _are_ the best."

She collapsed into his arms, and the words poured out along with her tears. "I lost you! I had to say goodbye!" Her hand fisted around his jumper as she clung to him.

He let her cry in his arms, letting out all the grief she felt over his death. And, for the first time since he'd realised how short this life was destined to be, he felt acceptance. Sadness for Rose, of course; the last thing he wanted was to cause her pain, and he'd never wanted to make her cry. Or grieve for him.

But he'd never imagined that anyone would mourn for his loss. Him, the miserable bastard who'd survived the Time War when he should have died, who pushed everyone away, even cherished old friends like Alistair, who insulted everyone within hearing distance and beyond. Yet Rose did. Rose felt his loss, which meant that his life, short as it was, had some meaning.

She was calming now. And, if he knew Rose, that meant she was getting ready to talk - which was the one thing he couldn't afford to let her do. He released her and got in first, quickly. "I might not know what the future holds, and you'd better not tell me, however much you obviously want to."

He'd died and left her, and he could just see that she was aching to pour out the whole story to him. She'd know by now that she couldn't do that - her experience with his previous selves had shown him that she understood why she couldn't tell him about his future - but this was different. She was upset, not as in control of herself as she'd normally be.

He saw her bite her lip as he continued. "You should know by now that this whole thing is an almighty paradox in the making, and I've had a right old time keeping all the knowledge I've built up about you and your little adventure away from your current self." He held her gaze, and felt his soften. "But I have missed you, Rose."

He reached out towards her, letting his hand rest on her shoulders, and his gaze intensified. "My guardian angel."

That made her laugh. "Me? You're joking! I'm not an angel. More like a walking disaster at the moment." She hiccupped. "Look at me. I'm in a right old state."

She moved away from him, going to the steps by the door and sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. His poor Rose. Of everything he - his future self - had asked him to do, of everything she'd found herself inadvertently doing with his past selves, this was obviously the hardest for her to bear.

Was it too much? Could she really not cope with being with him again? Should he just ask her for the diary now, give her his imprint and send her on her way? Send her back to the next him, the him who'd sent her on this mission in the first place and who obviously still trusted her, still depended on her. Still cared about her. Still loved her, he hoped. Because the idea that there could be a version of the Doctor, of him, who didn't love her scared him.

No. He couldn't send her away yet. Not like this. Not with so much unresolved between them.

Obviously they couldn't talk about his death, about whatever it was that had taken him away from her. And he couldn't ask her about the next him, much as he wanted to be assured that he was still looking after her, still keeping her safe - still showing her that she was important to him.

But he could show her that she was important to him _now_. He'd shown her that on her journey through his lives - his eighth self in particular had made clear just how much Rose Tyler meant to him, to all of him. Now, he could reinforce it. And maybe help her to see that, while he - this him - might be gone, he was still with her in his new form. He hadn't left her.

He dropped to the steps beside her, one leg sprawled along the floor, the other bent, and turned his body so that he was facing her. Looking intently at her.

She thought she was in a right state? She'd never looked so lovely.

"Why d'you say that, Rose?" he asked her.

She shrugged a little, not answering. Well, he had plenty to remind her of. Plenty of reasons why she was the best, and always would be.

"As I see it, you volunteered to do this for my next self, and have managed to... let's see." He let his eyes drift shut, smiling as he began to count on his fingers. "Helped out when I was at Tintagel, and blew off King Arthur." He opened his eyes and grinned at her. "Raced through an asteroid to avoid a pretty irate group of rebels, survived an alien invasion and drunk good old John Benton under the table."

She laughed, as he'd hoped.

"You fought off vampires and werewolves on Lunatia, saved my bacon on Satellite Seventeen, and I still want to know how you called the TARDIS." That was something he'd puzzled over through the century or so since. How could she possibly have that kind of connection with his TARDIS? Even he couldn't do that.

She just looked at him and swallowed, but didn't say anything. He got the message. Obviously something to do with his future - their shared future. Something she couldn't tell him about. Fair enough.

"Anyway - " And he had to start on the second hand. " - you fought off monsters, not once but twice, on Hutosa, survived an avalanche started by Ace, and survived dealing with her explosives - another major triumph if you ask me." He grinned again. "And, finally, survived dinner and dancing with my previous self." He smiled brightly, knowing this would make her smile back at him. "Not bad for an ape!"

He was right. She laughed out loud. "Well, I always reckoned you needed someone to sort you out," she told him, grinning back at him.

"See. You're much better company than that idiot Adam we just sent home. And I'd much rather have you around to get out of trouble than some pretty boy."

For some reason, that made her sober. "So you've only just got rid of Adam?"

He nodded. "A couple of hours ago. You, the other you, is sleeping at the moment, knackered after all that running around to stop the Jagrafess." He gave her a careful look. There was something going on here - something bothering her. Testing the water slightly, he said, "We haven't decided where to go next."

There was definitely a problem. He saw her swallow again, and he could tell that she was fighting an internal battle. There was something she so obviously wanted to tell him about - warn him, he'd guess - but she was taking his caution to heart.

Or trying to.

He couldn't take the risk that guilt - which he suspected was the problem - would win over caution. "Hey." He held her gaze again, his expression sympathetic but sober. "Whatever it is, you know you can't tell me. Right?"

She sighed. "I know."

In a sudden movement, she lay back against the hard grille, her head on the floor. She couldn't be comfortable there, but he knew why she'd done it. Distracting herself. Trying to make herself forget the desperate impulse to correct whatever had gone wrong, to prevent something terrible happening.

Could _this_ be it? Their next trip... was that when he would die? Was it tomorrow, or the next day, or the one after that, that she would lose him?

Well, if it was, then so be it. _Everything has its time, and everything dies._ Even the Doctor.

She was speaking again, in little more than a whisper. "But it is so hard, seeing you again, dealing with all this." She turned her head, looking up at him. "I just want things to get back to normal."

Did she really? And what did she mean by 'normal', anyway?

He looked down at her and gave her what he hoped was a reassuring, teasing smile. "C'mon, Rose. You should know by now that nothing is ever normal around me and, be honest, you'd still be home with Ricky-boy if you wanted that."

She smiled back at him. "You're right there." And then her expression changed. There was something in her gaze, something in her eyes that he'd only caught a tiny glimpse of twice before, but this was intensified many times over. "But I'd rather be right here."

His question was answered. She loved him. And something told him that this was the first time she'd made it clear to him.

She was asking him for something, too, and again he knew that they'd never done this before. So he was right; this was a line he shouldn't cross with his Rose, the Rose safely asleep in her bedroom.

But this, now, was a time out of Time. A meeting that would never be repeated; that was only happening now because of some calamity in his future. She was only here to get his diary imprint. In a few short minutes, or perhaps hours, she'd be gone again. Back to his future self.

What harm could it do? When it was something they both wanted, both needed?

She loved him. All of him - her appearances throughout his past told him that. No-one he'd known before throughout his long life had come to know him so well, because they'd never known all of him, every man he'd ever been.

He and Rose, intertwined throughout his history. Their whole past, their future, and even his present with the younger version of her, had been leading up to this.

He bent, leaning over her, bringing his lips close to hers. But he had to ask. Had to be sure.

"I don't know what happens in the future, Rose," he whispered. "But I think I know what I want now. But if you don't, just say the word and this is all forgotten."

He saw her gulp at his words, his intent. But, when she spoke, she answered his question and gave him far more.

"Doctor, I have wanted you since forever, and I would give my life for you. You'll know that soon, if you don't know already, that is." She reached up, cupping his cheek with her hand just as he'd done earlier. "I have crossed time and space for you, risked everything for you, and I'm doing my damnedest to save you, all of you, but," she added, her voice cracking, "you, this you, will always be my Doctor."

_Oh, Rose._

What would happen in his future? What would he do to her? What was she destined to do for him?

But those were questions he couldn't ask her. Couldn't let her answer. All the same, the depth of her love for him awed him.

Meaning every word, he murmured, "Then maybe we need to forget the pain for a while, Rose."

And he bent lower, bringing his lips to touch hers finally. Her arms locked around his neck, holding him to her as her lips parted beneath his, inviting him in, taking everything he offered and demanding more.

Rose. His Rose.

Time was such a bitter enemy. Time would take her away from him, and then him away from her. Oh, he still had her younger self, but not like this - and then he'd leave her, pass her into the hands of the next him, who would send her on this mission. She had all that pain to go through still, the pain this Rose had suffered and was suffering still.

For now, they could have release from the pain. If she wanted...

He stood, pulling her to her feet. "Do you want all of this, Rose?" He had to ask. If she said no... Well, if she said no, they could still share kisses until it was time for her to leave. But she smiled, answering him wordlessly. "Then come with me." And he led her through the silent hallways to his bedroom.

* * *

It was later, much later, that she stirred in his arms and smiled. "I love you."

He knew. Had always known, but hearing her say it made all the difference in the world. He couldn't stop the grin that stretched across his face; not that he wanted to. "I know, Rose Tyler. An' d'you know what?" He felt the grin become wider. "I love you, too!"

She kissed him again. And after that nothing else mattered. Time flowed around them; he ignored it. There was only Rose. Rose and him and their love for each other. The only thing that mattered was showing her how important she was to him. Making the most of this one night together, because it was all they'd ever have. At least in this body.

There was a point. His future self would remember this night. That was probably a good thing; if there was even the slightest chance that the next him didn't understand what made Rose special, why he loved her, then this would show him.

Except... there was a problem.

He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, as Rose slumbered in his arms. As he'd told her, this whole thing had the makings of a massive paradox. Even though she'd told him nothing about his future, he still knew too much.

He knew that tomorrow, or the day after, something terrible was going to happen. And she blamed herself for it.

He knew that his death would be traumatic, and that either before it or as part of it Rose would be prepared to sacrifice her life for his.

He knew now what it was like to love her, to know that she loved him, to kiss her, to explore her body with his own, to claim her as his.

He knew too much.

Knowing any one of those things could change the course of his life, the course of history. He couldn't allow himself to remember any of them.

There was a solution, of course. And, much as he hated it, he had to take it. But making himself forget this? This night with her, the night he wanted to remember for the rest of his lives? How could he just wipe it from his mind? But he had no choice.

He slid from the bed and rummaged through her clothes to find the diary, then found a pen and one of his sticky notes. A few moments' thought, and then he wrote quickly.

_Rose,_

_I can't risk the memory of tonight causing a paradox and wrecking all of what you have achieved, so I've downloaded not just my imprint but all of my memories of tonight into the diary. My future self will be able to retrieve them, and realise what an incredible woman you are. You need to leave before I wake up. That way when I get up tomorrow I'll just think I've overdone the tequila._

_I love you: always have, always will._

_The Doctor_

He had no choice. He had to do it.

With a deep breath, he stuck the note to the front of the diary. About to add his imprint to the collection, he paused, and then flicked quickly through it. The memories inside his head were all there - Rose's encounters with his past selves, her continuous presence throughout his lives. His Rose. His saviour. His guardian angel.

He added his own imprint to the eight others, then concentrated hard, allowing his memories to flow into the book, before sending himself into a deep sleep.

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 6: Aftermath

**Chapter 6: Aftermath**

Must have been a rough night last night. He'd hit the tequila hard or something. He'd woken up on his bedroom floor, of all places, a gaping hole in his memories where several hours should have been.

The last he remembered was changing his jumper. Leaving his jacket on the bed and going out to fix some circuits. But he couldn't have got around to that, because when he'd got to the console room he'd found the circuits just as he'd left them. Untouched.

Very strange. Especially seeing as the tequila bottle seemed to be at the same level as last time he'd opened it, or at least he thought.

Still, it couldn't be important. He made coffee, adding more grounds than usual - he clearly needed extra caffeine today. And, when a bleary-eyed Rose stumbled into the kitchen a few minutes later, rubbing her eyes, he was able to grin at her and pour her a cup, too.

Another day. A day just for them - the unwanted third wheel was gone - and he was going to give her a treat. Her choice of where they could go, when they could go. Whatever she wanted. Her wish was his command.

* * *

She wanted to see her dad. Understandable, of course. The only surprise was that the thought had never occurred to him.

Her dad had died when she was just a baby. She'd never known Peter Alan Tyler; all she had of him were the stories her mum had told her, how he was the best dad in the world, how much he'd loved her, how he'd have loved to watch her growing up. He had to give Jackie Tyler credit; she'd taught Rose to love the father she'd never known.

And she wanted to see him alive and well. Of course she did.

If he'd thought of it first, would he have offered? No. No, of course not. He was the Time Lord. He knew how dangerous these things were.

Would he say yes to her?

There were all the reasons in the world why it was a bad idea. So many he couldn't even count them.

There was only one reason to say yes. Rose.

He could stall. "Where's this come from all of a sudden?"

She looked away, and in that instant he saw how much it had cost her to ask him. This wasn't just a whim. At a guess, she'd been up half the night thinking about this, working up the courage to ask - and Rose Tyler very rarely needed courage to ask him anything. At a guess, too, she'd been crying about it.

"All right, then, if we can't, if it goes against the laws of time or something, then never mind. We'll just leave it." Defensive. Pretending that it really didn't matter to her, when everything about her expression and her body language said otherwise.

The problem was that it did go against the Laws of Time. Oh, and how. He ought to tell her that. Explain very carefully all the reasons why it was a bad idea, why he couldn't even begin to consider doing it for her. What could happen if things went wrong. And the Time Lord rules he was bound by...

...except he was the only one left. He wasn't bound by them any more. And he knew what he was doing, didn't he? He'd been at this long enough, after all. If he couldn't keep watch on one little human, make sure that her actions didn't affect the past in any way, if he ensured that all she could do was _watch_, then it'd be fine. Wouldn't it?

And if it would bring the smile back to her face...

He tossed the ball in his hand around a little more. "No, I can do anything. I'm just more worried about you."

And that was the absolute truth. Well, it wasn't true that he could do _anything_. In fact, that was so far from the truth. He couldn't bring Gallifrey back. He wasn't even convinced that he could keep Rose safe - although the future Rose represented some kind of promise that, against all expectations, he must manage it.

She met his gaze, need and pleading in her eyes. "I wanna see him."

He should say no. But he wasn't going to. And how much he hoped that he wasn't going to regret this. "Your wish is my command." He got to his feet and moved to the controls. "But be careful what you wish for."

* * *

This was fine. This wasn't going to cause any trouble at all.

Attending her parents' wedding. Sitting near the back, so they wouldn't be seen. There was no way that either Jackie or Pete would recognise Rose as their daughter today, and Jackie wouldn't get a good enough look at him to recognise him twenty or so years in her future.

He needn't have worried. This was all going smoothly - and it was pretty amusing, too, watching Pete Tyler stumbling over his bride's name and Jackie taking over, telling the celebrant to ignore it and carry on. Looked like she'd always been the dominant member of that household - it wasn't just something she'd had to develop as a survival skill after losing her husband.

His sympathy for Pete Tyler grew.

Back in the TARDIS, he grinned at Rose. He'd done what she'd asked, and she was happy about it. Okay, she was just a little disappointed in what she'd seen of her dad - clearly, she hadn't seen him at his best, but then a bloke was probably entitled to be nervous on a day like that. Signing away his freedom, and to a woman like Jackie Tyler; it was a wonder that Pete had stayed conscious enough to say his vows.

But he'd done what Rose wanted. He'd put the smile back on her face. He was her hero.

And then she delivered the blow. She wasn't satisfied. That sight of her dad had only whetted her appetite for more.

He listened in silence as she told him about the day he'd died. How he'd been running late because he'd forgotten to pick up the present for the couple whose wedding they were going to - it would have to be another bloody wedding, wouldn't it? How he'd got out of his car and instantly been knocked down by a hit-and-run driver. How he'd lain there in the road, alone, dying with nobody to hold his hand and comfort him in his final minutes. How he'd been dead by the time the ambulance came.

How the one thing that haunted her mum - and Rose, too, by the sound of it - was that he'd died alone. That there'd been no-one with him.

He listened. He said nothing. What could he say? It was a tragic story. But the universe was full of tragic stories. The whole of history was full of tragic stories. Of course he felt sympathy for Rose, for Jackie, for the dead Pete Tyler. But it'd happened and that was the way it was. _Everything has a time and everything dies_, he'd told Rose once. He wouldn't remind her of that now, but it was still true.

What did she want of him now? Because it was obvious that she wanted something. Not a hug; not comfort. She wasn't crying. She was emotional, true, twisting her hands, her voice unsteady at times. But she was in control of herself. And he just knew that she was working up to a request.

"I wanna be that someone. So he doesn't die alone."

He should have known. Should have guessed.

Hold her dad's hand as he died? Couldn't hurt, could it? Okay, it was changing history, unlike their visit to attend her parents' wedding. But it wouldn't change history in any meaningful way. Pete Tyler wouldn't die alone, but he would still die.

Yes, he could do that. And it would help Rose far more than a hug would.

He moved to the controls. Pausing just to confirm the date, he asked gently, "November the 7th?"

She nodded. "1987."

And they were on their way.

* * *

She couldn't do it. At the last moment, her courage failed.

When she ran off, tears streaming down her face, he followed. And when she asked if they could go back, if she could try again, he couldn't find the heart to say no.

Every atom of him aware of how wrong it was, of how much potential this had to screw Time up in a massive way, he took her back. Just a few minutes later than they'd arrived the first time. They stood at the corner of Jordan Road, watching themselves at the kerb watching Pete Tyler get out of his car.

He cautioned her as much as he could without scaring her too much. She was upset enough as it was.

"Right. That's the first you and me. It's a very bad idea, two sets of us being here at the same time. Just be careful they don't see us. Wait till she runs off and he follows, then go to your dad."

She took a shuddering breath. She was still trying to fight back the tears. "Oh, god, this is it." A few feet away, and being watched by the other them, Pete Tyler reached for his vase. "I can't do this," she said suddenly, emotionally.

He touched her shoulder, trying to offer what comfort he could. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to. But this is the last time we can be here." It was now or never. And he knew she'd never forgive herself if she failed this time.

And then the world fell apart around him as she rushed out, past the other two of them, and pushed her dad out of the path of the speeding car.

* * *

Red-hot fury consumed him. He stood and watched as Rose talked to her dad, made an idiot of herself chattering about narrow escapes and names and how he was _alive_. Inside, all he could think about was how stupid he'd been.

Hold her dad's hand as he died? That had never been her agenda. This, this was what she'd always planned. Save her dad's life. Change history. And now who knew how the timestream would change as a result?

At the first opportunity, he let her have it. She'd planned this all along, hadn't she? She finally stopped her babbling, realising from his silence that he wasn't happy. She offered to tell her dad that he wasn't her boyfriend. Did she honestly imagine _that_ was all he was angry about?

"When we met, I said 'travel with me in space'. You said no. Then I said 'time machine'."

"It wasn't some big plan. I just saw it happening and I thought... I can stop it." She was defensive, trying to make out that it wasn't a big deal. She had no idea. Oh, he'd tell her just how little she knew.

"I did it again. I picked another _stupid_ ape. I should've known. It's not about showing you the universe - it never is. It's about the universe doing something for you."

Her eyes flashed. So much for thinking that she might be sorry. "So it's okay when _you_ go to other times, and _you_ save people's lives - but not when it's me saving my dad."

Had she no idea? "_I_ know what I'm doing. You don't. Two sets of us being there made that a vulnerable point."

"But he's alive!" she protested, as if that was all that mattered. It _was_ the only thing that mattered, but not in the way she thought.

She had no clue at all. Why had he ever assumed that she was learning? That she might actually understand why these things were important? Why the Laws of Time existed?

The other Rose would have understood. Future-Rose. Now, it was so very clear that she was far from ready for the task that lay ahead of her. If she'd ever be. "My entire planet died. My whole family," he pointed out. "Do you think it never occurred to me to go back and save them?

Still defensive, she protested, "But it's not like I've changed _history_. Not much. I mean... he's never gonna be a world leader, he's not gonna start World War Three or anything..."

She really didn't understand. And shouting at her wasn't going to work. He had to get through to her, and the only way to do that was to lose the aggression, despite the fury still burning away inside him. He took a step towards her and spoke more quietly, in a more reasonable tone. "Rose, there's a man alive in the world who wasn't alive before. An ordinary man. That's the most important thing in creation. The whole world's different because he's alive."

"What, would you rather him dead?"

She still wasn't listening. What did he have to say to get through to her? "I'm not _saying_ that - "

"No, I get it! For once, you're not the most important man in my life."

Why did that hurt? It shouldn't. She was just a stupid human ape, like the rest of them blundering about on the skin of this backward little planet. Why should he care what she'd said? Why should he care whether he was important to her or not?

But he did. "Let's see how you get on without me, then. Give me the key." He held his hand out. She just stared at him, seeming not to understand.

"The TARDIS key. If I'm so _insignificant_, give it me back."

She fumbled for it. "All right then, I will." And she slapped it hard into his hand.

Had any human ever hurt him so much before? He stared at her. "Well, you've got what you wanted, so that's goodbye then." And he turned on his heel and walked away. Leaving her. Abandoning her to her fate, to whatever consequences her _stupid_ actions might have.

"You don't scare me." She'd followed him and was trying to block his exit. Of course, he was scaring her. He could see it in her face.

"I know how sad you are. You'll be back in a minute. Or you'll hang around outside the TARDIS waiting for me."

Bravado? Or did she really know him that well? Well, he'd show her just how well she knew him. He gave her a look of disgust, before stepping around her and leaving the flat. Leaving Rose.

* * *

And, of course, there were consequences. He found that out as soon as he got back to the TARDIS. Empty. The interior vanished. History, reality, changing right before his eyes. A tear in the fabric of Time. The Time Lord rendered powerless.

Rose. How could he abandon her to whatever was happening? He wouldn't really have left, anyway; would never have just left her behind in 1987. Apart from anything else, that would only have added to the paradox that she'd already caused.

Now, he had to find her before what he feared most came to pass.

Reapers. Chronovores. And he only just found her in time; only just pushed her out of the path of one. As it was, at least two people died before he could get the rest of the wedding party into the church. And they were the lucky ones. From what he could tell, looking out the windows, seeing smoke, from the unearthly silence everywhere, disaster had already struck on a massive scale.

The human race was reduced to a few tiny groups like this one, huddling somewhere the Reapers couldn't get at them, just waiting for the inevitable. Because these walls couldn't hold them out indefinitely. It was only a matter of time before everyone here died too.

Unless... And when he saw the car, the one that should have killed Pete Tyler, he knew it for certain. Unless Pete Tyler could be persuaded to walk under that car voluntarily. Unless he could be persuaded to kill himself for the sake of the human race.

But who would do that willingly? It wasn't as if he even knew very much about Pete Tyler. Was he the kind of man to sacrifice his life for the greater good? The most basic instinct of life was self-preservation, after all. Why would any man, unless he was suicidal, just kill himself?

And then there was Rose. Rose, with whom he was still furious. Rose, who'd asked him, once they'd got inside the church, whether this was all her fault. He'd been unable - unwilling, even - to offer her even a crumb of comfort. It was all her fault. In the end, he'd said nothing, but the look he'd given her had been scathing.

And then, with all hope lost because he couldn't bring himself to tell Pete Tyler what needed to be done, she'd said she was sorry.

"I am. I'm _sorry_."

They were all going to die. Including him, and this was a death from which regeneration wouldn't save him. But she was sorry, and somehow that was all that mattered.

He smiled and enfolded her in his arms.

* * *

Consequences.

Life. Death. Empires falling. Empires rising. Enemies living to fight another day. People he cared for in pain. Gallifrey. The universe.

There were consequences to every action. Newton had it right. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. Not only had Newton characterised gravity, he characterised guilt. His guilt.

Action.

Rose saved her dad. One single little human ape who lived when he should've died.

Action.

He'd brought her there. Not once, but twice. Classic paradox in the making. What did that make him? What did that say about him? He'd aided her. He'd helped make it possible for Rose to destroy the world, and for what? Because he was so impressive. Because he'd wanted to see her smile. Because he'd forgotten the truth. Forgot that what she would be didn't matter – not now. What mattered was that she was a nineteen-year-old human. Untrained. Unknowing. He'd said nothing. Told her nothing of the consequences of her actions.

Reaction.

Chronovores. Death on a scale that he had not seen since Gallifrey. And he had to protect her. Shelter her. Prevent her from seeing, from knowing, from realising what she had done. No, what _he_ had done. It was his fault. He had never said. Never told her what might happen. Never told her that, for every action in the past, there was a consequence.

Never told her that, if she saved her dad, they might've never met.

Never told her that, if she saved her dad, the universe might end.

Never told her that, if she saved her dad, she might not be the kind of Rose Tyler who _could_ save him, all of him, and the universe. She might not be the kind of person who he would ask to become a companion. She could disappear from his life. Would disappear from his life. Then again, she didn't know that. Couldn't know that. Not yet.

Reaction.

Gathered together, sheltered behind the hundred-year-old walls of the church, he watched her begin to realise. He watched her begin to understand. This was his life. This was what it was like travelling through time and space. This was his life. And now it was hers.

Reaction.

And then there was a way - another way, a way that didn't involve her dad dying. He could save her dad. Save her. Save them all. Summon his TARDIS, his beautiful ship, and save the lot of them. By the glow of a key, he could save them. Save her. And, for her, he would save her dad. Universe and consequences be damned. For her. He could do it. He could lose her. His future self would lose her, too. She would never be with him in the first place to save him, to go back into his past lives and gather his imprints to save all of him from whatever lay ahead.

But her happiness mattered more than that. For her happiness, he could do it.

The universe. Himself. Time. Everything be damned.

But then, a single touch. A single moment. Two Roses met. Flesh touched flesh. And the chronovores were in.

Reaction.

Only one choice. Just one. He had to save her. Save Rose. He was, after all, the oldest being in the room. Last choice. Was this it? Was this the end? Was this how the Doctor ended? Not by Dalek, not by fire, not by old age, but by chronovore? By the result of a consequence that he failed to acknowledge?

So ends the Doctor.

In nothingness.

* * *

What? How? He shouldn't exist. He was consumed. Swallowed. End of the world. He had saved Rose, he should've saved Rose. Even if she would have died herself within minutes, he'd given her those final few precious moments to spend with her dad. What could have happened? How could he be here?

Then he saw her. Saw her watching the corner of the road, tears pouring down her face. Saw her watch her dad die. For her, and for the whole human race. Saw her and felt his hearts break.

"Go to him," he urged, not caring that, for that moment – for that second – he was not the most important man in her life. It was a human. A silly, courageous, stupid human who'd done the smartest and bravest thing that he could. He'd died.

And it should've been him.

He watched her run. Watched her fall to her knees beside her dad. Watched her hold his hand as he slipped away. He stood vigil over her, over them. Let her have this moment with him. And then he did the only thing he could do.

He held out his hand.

Action.

Her dad died.

Reaction.

He held her hand and led her home.

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 7: Interloper

**Chapter 7: Interloper**

Everybody lived. Just this once, everybody lived. The words tumbled joyfully through his mind as he realised that just this once he'd got it right. In all his lives, just this once, he'd got it right. Everybody lived.

It was a heady feeling, this joy. He felt the need to do something to express how he felt in action. Bounding around the console room, beaming like an idiot, was only part of what he wanted – no, what he needed.

He remembered. At least, he thought he remembered. Rose had challenged him to dance, but he had forgotten. Not anymore.

Everybody lived. Rose lived. He lived. The human race lived. Even Jack lived, or would live once he picked up the brave, stupid ape from his soon-to-explode ship. But, right now, he was Father Christmas. Right now, he was on fire.

Right now, he wanted to dance.

"I remember! Rose, I remember!"

"What?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to understand him, but he grinned as he flipped a switch on the console.

The sounds of Glenn Miller filled the air as he held out his hand. "I remember how to dance!" Sure, he had danced with her before. But that was a waltz. This was Glenn Miller. He was a different man, after all. Only the woman in his arms remained the same.

She grinned at him, and he supposed that his joy was infectious. He had so rarely felt like this. It was so rare for him to have a day like this. Everybody lived. For the first time, everybody lived. He could ignore the concerns of training Rose, ignore the universe for a brief moment, and simply enjoy life. Enjoy what he had in his arms and around him.

Everybody lived. He swung her around, but it was only in his mind that he was an expert. Rose's expression was quite eloquent in her reaction as her arm was twisted awkwardly behind her. He thought he remembered how to do this, but even that failed to put much of a damper on his enthusiasm.

"Okay, okay, try and spin me again, but this time - don't get my arm up my back!"

He felt rather sheepish. He was sure that he had known how to do this. Maybe he was getting too old for this. Nah. Not possible. Everybody lived. It deserved a dance. He could do this.

"No extra points for a half-nelson."

"I'm _sure_ I used to know this stuff." He was, though in his eighth life he was far more likely to waltz than jitterbug. And he remembered waltzing with her, too. Holding her in his arms, close to him. His Rose, the Rose he was about to send off to see this him, the him she would lose...

But not yet. She hadn't lost him yet. And he still had hopes that it wouldn't be for a while. Weeks? Months? At most, perhaps, a year. And he didn't intend to waste any of it.

He turned his head towards Jack, who had wandered in with the typical shell-shocked expression of a companion newly introduced to the TARDIS. "Close the door, will you? Your ship's about to blow up - there's gonna be a draught."

He started up the engines and sent them into the vortex. They could orbit for a bit while he indulged himself. Dancing, grinning, flirting, whatever. The universe could sod off – at least for a time. Everybody lived, and that deserved a celebration.

"Welcome to the TARDIS," he said.

"Much bigger on the inside..." Jack replied and he fought the urge to roll his eyes. Why did these stupid apes love stating the obvious so much? If he had a single galactic credit for every time someone said that, he would be the richest man in the galaxy. Ever. Then again, he already was.

"You'd better be." It was a warning. Jack's trial had begun. Maybe he'd get to stay. Maybe not. But Rose was his.

"I think what the Doctor's trying to say is... you may cut in." The two humans shared a grin and he watched her take Jack's hand.

It only took a quick telepathic word with the TARDIS for the music to change. "Rose! I've just remembered!"

"What?" She asked.

_In the Mood_, much better. He was definitely a jitterbug kind of man. "I can dance!"

"Actually, Doctor...I thought Jack might like this dance." Rose said, and he grinned.

"I'm sure he would, Rose. I'm absolutely certain. But who with?" That did it. She laughed quietly and joined him in the celebration.

Everybody lived.

So they danced.

* * *

Nine hundred years of travel in time and space, and he had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. Damsel in distress? The weak getting picked upon by the strong? A piece of technology that shouldn't be in the time it was? These were the things that attracted him. These were the things that could capture him.

And they had.

This time, it was a piece of technology that should not exist, could not exist. Not in Victorian England. Not in London. Not after Gallifrey's destruction. He had investigated, swanned off without telling either Rose or 'Captain' Jack where he was going beyond the simple word of 'Out'. And, of course, it had turned out to be a trap.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Nine hundred years, and he still could be captured with the ease of a novice. He hadn't even had a backup plan. Hadn't told his companions - well, companion and trial-companion - where he was going. Now, he was stuck. Chained to a wall in the depths of a dungeon with no way out.

Fantastic.

He didn't even have a megalomaniac to taunt. No, he had discovered a band of greedy space-pirates who had managed to get themselves stuck on Earth. They knew that Earth was frequented by advanced races, and had decided to leave out a bit of bait and then nick whatever tech and goods their victims owned.

Typical.

If it wasn't world domination, it was greed. When would the villains he encountered get an original goal that wasn't nabbed straight out of a cheap comic book? And, of course, one of their lot had got the bright idea of starting a slaving ring on top of thievery.

And guess who got to be lucky victim number one?

It never rained, but it poured.

His hands were chained above his head. There wasn't enough give in the chain to move more than a few centimetres away from the wall, let alone sit down. Humans always were among the more imaginative of races when it came to locking people up. The pirates were just making full use of that fact.

And he had no way out. No way to get to his sonic screwdriver – if he'd still had it. No way out of the room.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Was this the end? Was his demise forthcoming in the guise of unwashed, buck-toothed space-pirates? Was his tenth self doomed to tell Rose, 'Sorry, but I didn't see that one coming?' Was this where Rose would lose him? Caught like a novice, strung up like a prized catch, and now his wrists were getting chafed by the chains.

This truly was not one of his best days.

Right. Enough of this moping. He had to do something. Anything. "Oi! You lot! I need to speak to someone in charge!"

"Why should we let you?" a voice replied. From the sounds outside his cell, the speaker was moving closer.

"'Cause you've got nothing better to do?" he suggested. "And I can pay you."

That did it. He heard the sound of a key slipping into the lock and turning. One of the ugliest of the pirates leaned against the doorframe and grinned toothily at him. Obviously he needed to get a better dentist. "I'm listening."

"But are you in charge? Or are you just greedy? Really can't tell with you lot. Seen one pirate, seen 'em all." He grinned disarmingly. It was, after all, rather hard to be intimidating when your arms were currently threatening to be torn from their sockets.

The pirate grinned and bowed mockingly. "Captain Paul Riggrands of the _Venture_, at your service." The way the words were spoken seemed to indicate that the pirate's name should've meant something to him.

He didn't look much like a captain. Probably an assumed title, handed out like _The Dread Pirate Roberts_, if he were to guess. Admittedly, his clothes were of a shade better cut than those of his crew. Still didn't have a decent dentist, though. What was the point of being a captain if you couldn't take care of that, at least? Really, he never would understand piracy. "Mind letting me down so we can chat like civilised people?"

Riggrands folded his arms in front of himself and continued grinning. "Who said anything about being civilised? We can talk like this. What did you want?"

"Oh, it's quite simple, really. You tell me where you got your hands on that little bit of technology, an' I buy it off you," he replied. He left out the part about where he would shut down their lucrative operation, of course.

"Now, why would I want to give up my little toy? You're going to have to do much better than that."

He named a figure.

Riggrands didn't have a very good poker-face. However, he knew that he would probably have to do better than his previous offer to get a real reaction out of him.

He upped the price, just a bit. "But that's as far as I'm goin' without some guarantees. Promises. I might just be hanging around as your captive audience, but if we're gonna do business you've gotta throw me a bone."

"How do I know you're not lying? You certainly don't look like you're rich." The captain looked at him scornfully.

"_What_ is wrong with this jumper?" He sighed and shook his head. "Want me to prove it to you? Then let me down, and I'll take you to the bank."

"Which one?" Riggrands asked, folding his arms in front of him.

If this were a movie, he would've expected the captain to say something like 'Go ahead, make my day.' He really had been spending too much time with humans.

Right. Banks. What year was it? Ah. Of course. When it doubt, go to the basics. "Coutts."

"Coutts?" the other man repeated, surprised.

"There an echo in here or what? Yes, Coutts. Y' sound surprised or somethin'." What was it with these people making assumptions? Just because he wasn't wearing his best jumper today...

"Like I said, you don't look rich."

"Appearances can be deceiving, so you gonna let me down?"

Riggrands grinned. "Now why would I do that, rich man? 'Specially since a rich man's bound to have a wife or friends who'd be desperate to get you back. Might as well milk it for what it's worth, no? Get what we can, then sell ya an' whoever comes after ya."

"Bollocks," he muttered before raising his voice. "Honestly, can't you lot get original threats for once? Even an original plan? 'S always greed. Why can't you have a decent reason. Like, oh, world peace. Though why world peace would 'cause you to kidnap someone's beyond me but..."

"Shut up," Riggrands snapped.

"What? You're honestly gonna have to do better than that if you want me to shut up. Know folks who've been tryin' for years an' still haven't succeeded. What makes ya think you're special?" He did his best to look bored.

The captain sneered. "Such bravery in the face of danger. You amuse me. What's your name?"

"Doctor John Smith," he supplied, giving his shackles a yank for good measure.

"Doctor, eh? Then it'll be that much more of a pleasure to relieve you and your friends of your valuables. And, of course, selling you to the highest bidder. Doctors go for a very good price these days." Riggrands grinned, giving him another flash of his yellowed teeth.

"That supposed to scare me or somethin'? If it is, you really need to try harder." He deliberately yawned, letting his head loll against his arm.

Before the captain could reply, a muffled explosion echoed through the cell. The wall vibrated enough that chunks of masonry broke free, shattering into small pieces on the floor.

"What the hell?" Riggrands said and hurried out, not bothering to close the door behind him.

Open door equalled freedom. Well, it would if he wasn't still chained to the wall. Really gave one a different perspective on life. Stuck in a rut? Chained to a wall? Freedom was only an open door away. Provided, of course, one could free oneself from said shackles.

Another muffled explosion caused more fragments of stone to fall from the ceiling. It was almost a classic distraction. Blow something up, distract the guards, rescue the prisoner. Very classic. Textbook, even.

"Didn't think you were the bondage type, Doctor. You should've told me," Jack Harkness commented from the doorway with a wide grin.

Oh. It would be him. Textbook distraction. Textbook rescue. "Not on a first date," he groused.

"Doctor!" Rose exclaimed as she brushed past Jack and ran to his side. Of course she'd had to come along. She'd had to run straight into danger, come to the rescue, and with Jack Flash to boot.

That was _not_ jealousy he was feeling. Not at all.

"You're hurt!" she commented, reaching to touch gently where the shackles were clasped around his wrists.

"Nothin' a visit to the TARDIS medical bay won't cure. So mind lettin' me down, Jack? Your distraction won't last forever." He arched an eyebrow at Jack as the other man crossed the room.

"I dunno, Doctor. I can be _very_ distracting." Jack flashed his perfect white teeth again as he pulled out his sonic blaster. "Shield your eyes, Rose."

The low hum of the blaster was drowned out by another explosion. And, suddenly, his arms were freed. His full weight on muscles that had gone numb was too much for his legs to handle. He stumbled and would've fallen if he wasn't caught by a pair of hands.

"Whoa! Hold on there, Doctor." Jack's expression had turned from flirtatious to concerned. "You'll get your legs back in a moment."

He winced at the pins-and-needles feeling that arched through his body, knowing that pain would be following close behind. "Still attached to my feet, they are. Haven't misplaced 'em, though wish I had."

Rose carefully wrapped his arm around her shoulders while Jack did the same. It was a bit awkward, but he knew that he couldn't walk otherwise.

"Let's blow this pop stand," Jack said as they started to make their way to the door.

"Thought you already did," he commented dryly. With each step, the pins-and-needles feeling dissipated, to be replaced with a deep-seated ache. Why did humans have to be so unique in their methods of restraint? Why couldn't they just use rope or something simple – like a locked door? Those were simple to escape...ah. He'd answered his own question.

Sometimes stupid apes weren't that stupid – much to his chagrin. Enough of this moping. Things to do, technology to steal, and places to go. "How many more of those explosives d'you have set, Jack?"

"Two more, gives us cover for our escape."

"Ah," he replied as his brow furrowed in thought. "We've got to get the amaranth away from these people. Too dangerous to be in their hands. 'Fore you ask, that's how these pirates managed to grab me in the first place. It's advanced tech an' should definitely not be left around for these stupid apes to muck around with." Time Lord technology shouldn't be allowed anywhere near these people, especially not the amaranth.

"What's an amaranth?" Rose asked as the trio hobbled their way through the door.

"Somethin' that shouldn't exist," he snapped before regret instantly filled him at the hurt expression on her face. "'S dangerous, Rose."

She searched his eyes for a moment and he vaguely wondered what secrets she might think she could see. The Time War? The Time Lords? The secrets of amaranth? However, instead of asking those questions he knew must be burning within her, she nodded. "All right. So it's dangerous. Where is it?"

"After 'aving met the leader of this lot? Probably as close to 'im as possible. It's about the size of a cricket ball with bits attached to the sides. Too awkward to fit in a pocket, that." He tried to form the shape with his hands, but it was too difficult to manage while propped against them.

He frowned with the effort as he flexed his toes. "Ah, think I'm feelin' my legs again."

"D'you wanna try walkin' on your own?" Rose asked.

Without bothering to reply, he eased his arms off his companions and took a few steps unaided. "Yup. Back to normal!" He grinned brightly as he turned a bit too quickly in celebration. The world spun on its axis strangely and he found himself having to hide the moment's weakness with an odd lurch.

"Doctor!" Jack was at his side in an instant. With a gentle touch, the other man grasped his elbow as he found his balance.

"I'm..." The world lurched again, only this time he knew it wasn't because of his body's rebellion.

It was the amaranth.

He uttered a string of colourful Gallifreyan curses that he knew the TARDIS would refuse to translate for his companions.

"I know swearing when I hear it, Doctor. What's going on?" Jack asked.

"They're using the amaranth. The bloody idiots are using the amaranth an' they don't know how." Now the world spun, whirling in colours and shapes that defied description or logic.

"How d'you know that they're usin' the amaranth?" Rose asked. Confusion coloured her words and he envied her that. She didn't know, couldn't know. She wasn't a Time Lord. Didn't yet know what she would later know about him, about his species. The knowledge his next self would give her to enable her to fulfil her task.

He smiled at the vaguely-Rose-shaped figure to his right. His senses were tumbling out of control. Now he remembered why he hated using the amaranth. It wasn't bad when he was operating the device, but when he wasn't, it was like being tossed into a washing machine on 'spin'. "Time Lord."

"Ah."

Though he couldn't tell what expression was on her face, he knew the tone of voice. He had been about as clear as mud with that explanation, hadn't he? However, that was what she'd have to deal with. He hesitated over explaining more, but he might have to. Given that he could barely see, let alone find the amaranth, he'd be relying on Rose and Jack.

It wasn't often that he let others lead, but, this time, he had to.

He sighed. "Right. The amaranth affects my perceptions. I won't be able to find it, let alone take it away from Riggrands. Which is why I'm going to have to rely on you two. You're going to have to do it for me. I can talk you through how to shut it down, but then we're going to have to run. Reality doesn't much like being mucked with, an' the amaranth does just that. When it snaps back to normal you can never tell what might happen."

He heard Rose draw in a startled breath. "So all we need to do is find Riggrands, get the amaranth, shut it off, an' then run away?"

"Yup." He shrugged slightly. Not the best of plans, admittedly. But, in the amount of time it'd take to explain even the most basic of principles related to the amaranth, reality could be torn apart. Or he could go mad.

That was one tiny aspect of amaranth-usage he had no plan on sharing with either of his companions.

"Sounds like fun." He could hear the grin in Jack's voice.

Oh, yes. Loads.

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter 8: Consequences

**Chapter 8: Consequences**

The amaranth.

He could see it through impossible shapes and colours, vibrant, pulsing, stretching out toward him.

He vaguely wondered if this was what insanity was like. Was insanity seeing nothing that made sense, tasting colours, touching smells, hearing shapes? Or was it deeper than that? More meaningful? And, by contrast, was sanity an option anymore?

He couldn't tell.

_Poppycock! You're as sane as the next man. Or me. So get on with it, _a previous version of himself groused.

Ah. When he was younger, older, shorter, and Scottish, he'd almost been driven insane. Huitzilipochtli had done his worst, yet he'd survived.

He'd faced gods - or so-called ones. He could face the amaranth. After all, reality was really how one perceived it. Or something of that sort.

Rose's hand grounded him, kept him focused on the here and now. Much as he could, that was, especially given the strange shade of chartreuse the amaranth had decided to paint reality with.

"Oh, so Doctor John Smith has friends," a familiar sneering voice taunted. "Nice distraction, by the way. Caught a few of my crew off guard, but I wasn't fooled."

Ah. He'd predicted correctly. Where they found the amaranth, they'd find Riggrands. Convenient, that.

"Who says that was the distraction?" Jack asked. "Could be me."

He couldn't see him, but he could tell his companion was moving.

"You?" Riggrands laughed. "Who're you, pretty boy?"

He could imagine Jack's wide grin. "A distraction."

Then he heard shuffling, grunts, and groans of pain. Something skidded away on the floor - a blaster? A fight was occurring and there was nothing he could do about it.

The amaranth-induced reality spun faster, influenced by the close proximity of two strong minds.

He staggered.

"Doctor!" Rose's hand tightened on his arm.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn't reassure her, couldn't say anything. It was all he could do to keep the fragments of his mind in one piece.

_I say, old chap, having a bit of a bother, are we?_

_Oh, oh dear. Well, brave heart._

Fragments of thoughts from previous incarnations tumbled in his mind, each clamouring to be heard over the other. It wasn't helping. They weren't helping.

Then he felt Rose's hand behind wrenched away from his arm. "Rose!"

The sound of flesh hitting flesh was not something one could forget easily. In his panic over her fate, he lost hold of one of the fragments of his mind. She could be injured, even killed, and the bloody amaranth had rendered him helpless.

No.

_No,_ over half a dozen voices echoed.

No.

Something - no, someone - collapsed to the ground with a low thud.

No! He could fight the amaranth, restore reality. He just had to force his way to it, make his way to the heart of the storm.

Easy. Simple.

And then he'd sort it.

If something had happened to Rose, if she was injured - he dared not think killed - he'd rip this place apart in revenge.

_Then stop dawdling! _

Spurred on by the voice of his past self, he staggered forward. The amaranth had been near the centre of the room, where Riggrands and Jack were fighting. He just had to get closer...

And everything stopped.

Time.

Space.

Reality.

Stopped.

He felt himself caught on a second, a moment, an instant. All of time and space were opened before him, reality could be twisted, shaped, turned. Anything was possible in time. Anything at all.

Then it started again.

Reality bled.

Time screamed.

Space warped.

The amaranth shut down.

"Whatever the hell that was? Don't want to experience that again." Jack commented, holding the amaranth in the palm of his hand.

That was when he realised he could see. He could see! "Rose!"

"Yeah?" she asked from somewhere behind him.

He turned and felt a strong feeling of relief sweep over him as he finally saw Rose. Not a scrape on her, but she was wincing as she rubbed her hand. What could've...his gaze drifted downward to the fallen pirate. Ah. "That hurt, I'll 'ave you know."

"Nice moves, Rose." Jack grinned.

He couldn't help the grouchy tone that crept into his voice as he replied. "Enough flirtin', Jack. We've got to go, and quickly." Provided, of course, that they weren't already too late. "Give me the amaranth."

The silver-hued ball was tossed to him and he caught it with a pained look. Some things weren't meant to be tossed. Gallifreyan technology that shouldn't exist was at the top of that list. Especially considering that reality was about to reset on them. "Reality's 'bout to do a reset. Entire castle's bound to implode, so we need to get out of here. Now." He looked at Rose and held out his hand, comforted when she immediately grasped it. "Seems to be a staple word to our lives, but...run!"

So they did.

* * *

Safe and sound. Safe in the TARDIS with his companions tucked away in their beds. Safe in the vortex, far away from the pirates and the memory of medieval London. Sound was another question entirely.

The amaranth hummed softly in his hands, but it was quiescent. It was such a small thing to be able to re-order the universe. A small, almost insignificant, object that was capable of so much more. He turned it slowly, tracing the knobs and edges of the device. The sharp pang of homesickness coursed through his soul, but he suppressed it firmly.

Time Lord technology.

It shouldn't exist, couldn't exist. Gallifrey was gone, turned to rubble and dust. But here it was. A tiny fragment of his home held in the palm of his hand. He sighed and set it aside, balancing the amaranth against the edge of the console. He'd have to put it away, hide it deep within the TARDIS. Even forget about it, forget the temptation it represented.

Re-order the space-time continuum into whatever shape he so desired. Vaguely he wondered if he could use it to restore Gallifrey... no.

It must be hidden.

Some things were best forgotten.

"So. No lasting injuries?" The soft voice of Jack Harkness shattered the melancholic mood he'd found himself in and he smiled faintly.

"Nah. Fit as a fiddle, me." He wrinkled his nose. First time he'd ever used that turn of phrase and he didn't particularly care for it. Might be something best suited to a future regeneration. After all, who knew? Maybe in his next life he'd have the penchant for quoting Disney films.

"Right." Jack was obviously sceptical as he leaned against the console. "Wanna tell me what that was about? Really?"

"Not really." He shrugged, turning his attention back to the amaranth. His hand half-reached for it again, but Jack's voice interrupted the movement.

"Y'sure you should be playing with that thing?"

He was about to retort angrily when he noticed the genuine concern in the other man's eyes.

"Last time it was used, you weren't in good enough shape to..." Jack's voice trailed off as he seemed to search for a word.

"Handle it? Support it? Find it?" he suggested. "Yeah, I wasn't. 'S different now. I'd be the one in control..." Temptation, temptation, temptation.

"Would you?" his companion asked. "Would you really?"

He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Jack sighed as he leaned against the console. "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"I thought I was supposed to be the conman here, Doctor." The former Time Agent's vivid blue eyes seemed to bore a hole into him, catching sight of things that were better left alone. Better left forgotten.

It'd almost be a concession, a loss, to look away. However, he couldn't let this overly perceptive ape get the better of him. Instead of averting his gaze, he met the other man's eyes.

_This what you wanted? Go ahead, look, Jack Harkness. This is me. _

"Coffee?"

The apparent non sequitur startled him, and he blinked. It wasn't a concession. "You offerin'?"

Jack smiled, though the expression didn't reach his eyes. "I'm always offering, Doctor. It's a matter of when you'll accept."

Humans. Always so concerned with matters of biology, especially this one. Captain Jack Harkness, dancing a speciality. "No thanks. Not thirsty."

"So, you gonna tell me what that thing does that makes it so dangerous?" Jack asked, gesturing toward the amaranth. A flash of hurt was barely visible in his expression as he added bitterly, "Don't worry, I'm not going to try and steal it and sell it to somebody."

He wasn't, surprisingly enough. Not worried about the silver or the amaranth. Not around Jack, not anymore. Over the course of the day his perception of the other man had changed. Jack had proved his worth, but was it enough to tell him the truth?

Another glance at the former Time Agent convinced him.

Yes.

"It destabilizes the space-time continuum. Re-orders the universe in whatever way its operator wants. An' good ol' Riggrands was an inept user. Forgot to think about what'd happen when reality gets warped in a small space. Forgot the basics. Nature abhors non-equilibrium. It was a tickin' bomb with a short fuse." He didn't add that his people had created it. Didn't add that it was yet another piece of a home long since destroyed. Some things were best kept to himself.

"Good thing we got it away from them, then."

"Yeah. Good thing." If his voice was slightly downbeat, it could be forgiven. It'd been a trying day.

"Right, well... I'm going to go get that coffee. Sure you don't want a cup?" Jack asked, brushing his hands against his jeans as he stepped away from the console. A flicker of pain marred his expression for a moment before his usual mask slid into place.

Ever the conman. Oh, bollocks. He'd mucked it up again. Dealing with humans... no. That was an excuse. He'd do the same if it was another Time Lord.

_But it isn't, 'cause they're all gone. You killed them._

He suppressed the voice firmly. "Yeah, 'm sure." He reached for the amaranth, considering its temptation before making his decision. "Jack!"

The former Time Agent turned. "Yeah?"

"Catch." He tossed the amaranth to the other man, who caught it with a startled look. "Hide that someplace, would ya? Pick a room, anywhere in the TARDIS, and toss it in."

"Doctor?" So many questions were crammed into his name.

"Some things are better forgotten, or lost," he explained. Time for another decision, he realised. Jack had proven himself that day. Proved he was much more than just a conman.

"Didn't think you trusted me," Jack replied, looking at the amaranth.

He grinned. "Course I do. You're my companion."

Jack seemed stunned to silence for a moment, before he responded. "Companion, huh? Does it get extra perks? Better sleeping arrangements? Private tutorials?" A wide, genuine grin spread across the other man's face as he finished.

"Already told you, Jack. Not on a first date."

Jack's grin widened. "Then we'll have to try for a second." With those words, and an accompanying wink, the other man moved deeper into the TARDIS.

He leaned against the console with a fond smile on his face. It'd been a long time since he'd last had two companions on board the TARDIS. It probably was about time to try it again.

Rose might be his champion, but Jack had proven himself to be a more than able defender and rescuer. Shades of Ace, in fact.

Some things were better with two, yes. Someday, perhaps soon, perhaps not, he'd be gone. Regeneration was a shadow looming over him, although since he'd yet to see the future version of Rose he had some time yet. Probably not much.

Regeneration. Something he hadn't even told Rose about, which was pretty short-sighted of him given he knew that she'd get to see him through one. And given he knew it wouldn't be long now.

_And_, too, given that he knew Rose would find it difficult. The Rose of his past - and his future - had still been hurting from losing him. He still couldn't forget the way she'd looked at the eighth him as she prepared to make the jump to see _him_. The devastation in her face. Everything about her that'd made it obvious how much she'd grieved for him.

He had to tell her, soon. Explain the process, make sure she understood that when it happened she wouldn't lose him. That he'd still be here, with her, but just in a different body. Maybe that would make it easier for her, or maybe not. But Jack'd be there. He needed to tell Jack about regeneration, too - Jack could help her through it.

And, with that thought, his smile widened to a grin. Yes. Some things were better with two. But, as he'd learned that day, other things were better with three.

* * *

Blon Fel Fotch was wrong.

He never escaped consequences. Not him. And especially not in this life.

He'd been stumbling over the consequences of the Time War ever since his regeneration. One after another, they'd jumped up and bit him, usually when he was least expecting it. The Nestene Consciousness. Rose's endless questions. The Gelth. Worst of all, that lone Dalek in Van Statten's bunker in Utah.

Now, another one: the consequence of failing to sort out the fallout from destroying the Jagrafess on Satellite Five. He should have been more suspicious. Should have wondered what was really going on. Who the bloody hell was the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrajassic Moxarodenfoe, anyway?

He should have stayed to make sure that order reasserted itself. That the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire fell back into place. But he hadn't. He'd swanned off, as always, in his beautiful TARDIS, dumping Adam and keeping Rose.

It'd be just his luck if dumping Adam the way he had with that hole in his head caused yet more consequences.

And now, back on Satellite Five, renamed the Game Station, yet more consequences, this time both of his failure to finish the job the last time and of something else. His hubris.

Ever since 1941, since saving Jack from his doomed ship, since _everybody lives_, he'd become over-confident. So sure that he could save everyone. No, not everyone: Rose. So sure that he could keep her safe.

After all, he _did_ keep her safe, didn't he? Her appearances in his past life proved that. Nothing had changed in his past. No twin-track memories, with and without Rose, had appeared. So everything was fine. He didn't need to worry about her safety as much as he had. After all, they'd survived the Gelth, the Slitheen, the Dalek; she'd survived the barrage balloon. And even Blon's threat to her life hadn't worried him. They'd been in his TARDIS. Blon would never have succeeded.

Complacent. And now look what had happened.

Rose was lost somewhere inside these games. Even Jack's wrist computer, programmed to find her - and him - anywhere - couldn't locate her. The security around the Game Station was blocking out the signal.

They had to find her. The alternative didn't bear thinking about. Not just for his future, but for his _now_.

* * *

And they did find her.

But it was too late. She died, right in front of him.

And that was it. In one second, one lousy, stinking second, she died. Rose ended. And his life ended.

Not now; now, he was still alive, even if it didn't feel like it as he bent over her ashes, letting them trickle through his fingers as her final seconds played through his mind over and over. Running to him, delighted to see him, but terrified for his safety. Screaming a warning. And then... gone. Vanished. With nothing remaining but a little pile of dust.

Yes, he was still alive now, but that was irrelevant. His future self would die. Because Rose was dead, and couldn't go into his past to collect the psychic imprints of his past lives, and thus save his life and the universe.

He'd failed. He hadn't kept her safe.

He'd failed Jackie Tyler. He'd failed the universe. He'd failed himself.

And, most of all, he'd failed Rose.

* * *

Miraculously, he hadn't. Miraculously, she was still alive. Miraculously, he managed to rescue her from the middle of the Dalek fleet.

Miraculously, she didn't blame him for failing her. Instead, she hugged him as if she hadn't seen him in weeks - _felt like it, too_ - and stood by his side at first, and later waited for him, as he confronted the Dalek emperor.

This, _this_, was the Rose of his future, the Rose who ran through each of his past lives, who saved him, all of him.

It couldn't be long now. It wouldn't be any surprise if this turned out to be his endgame.

But, if it were, there were things that had to happen first. He had to meet future-Rose. Her task wouldn't be complete without his imprint. So she had to appear very soon. Just, please, not right now, in the middle of the Dalek fleet! He had enough to do keeping an eye on Jack and present-Rose. There was only so much he could do to protect companions, only so many people he could watch over.

She had to appear soon, though. Because he could actually _feel_ the remains of his life, this life, trickling away like grains of sand. Time was indeed short.

He also, before this life ended, had to find a way of keeping his companions safe. Rose, first and foremost. Because of the task she had to complete, and because she was _Rose_. Jack, too, if he could. True, Jack was a soldier and a former Time Agent and he knew what he was getting into here, but that didn't mean he had to join the growing ranks of people who died as a consequence of his actions. There were far too many of those already.

Consequences. Always consequences.

And this time, he knew as he gathered his companions back into the TARDIS and collapsed, just for a minute, against the door, he couldn't escape them.

It was time. Let the game play out.

_To be concluded..._


	10. Chapter 9: A Kiss for Farewell

**Chapter 9: A Kiss for Farewell**

What was it all for?

One press of a button and Gallifrey had burned. One press of a button and the Dalek fleet had burned. A million ships had burned, except for one. The most important one. He had committed genocide, killed his people, and for what?

Nothing.

The monsters lived. The Emperor lived. The Daleks lived. His people had died. What was it all for?

Once again, there was no time. The fate of the universe rested in his hands, and he had to choose. Once again, he had a choice.

The universe or the Daleks? Life or death?

He stared at the wires in his hands in despair. He could save the world, but lose Rose. No chances, no possibility of escape. Not for her. Not for him. Not for Jack.

Death made victims of them all.

He tore at the wires, ripping them from their casings. No. He would not allow that to happen.

"Suppose..." Rose's voice trailed off.

"What?" he asked, proud that his voice did not shake. Proud that he did not show his fear. Not for himself, never for himself, but for her. For Jack. For the entire human race.

"Nothing," she said with a brief sigh.

"You said 'suppose'," he prompted as he spliced together two wires. Tricky thing, jiggery-pokery. Especially when it might mean the end of the world.

"No, I was just thinking... I mean, obviously you can't, but... you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?"

"Soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events. Stuck in the timeline." He had thought about it. Of course he had.

"Yeah, thought it'd be something like that..." Rose replied.

He looked at her, his hands stilling on the wires. "There's another thing the TARDIS could do... it could take us away..." He could offer. Of course he could, and even if she did accept he would return. There were some responsibilities that couldn't be shirked. Some responsibilities to the universe that he couldn't ignore.

She glanced briefly at him with a small smile.

"We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989." So many choices, so many times. He could choose that, for a brief moment he could escape. Yet he could not run. Not this time. Not now. Not from this.

Rose said, in a soft voice, "Yeah, but you'd never do that."

He smiled faintly as he met her eyes for the first time. "No, but you could ask." She could always ask. But she didn't reply.

He was so proud of her. In that moment he knew. This was Rose. His Rose - the Rose of all his selves. Right under his nose, she'd become the Rose he'd met throughout his past lives. Which meant that this was the endgame. His endgame. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"

"Well, I'm just too good!" She grinned.

A warm smile crossed his face. She was. Absolutely.

That was when he heard the whirr of one of the computers and he turned, alert.

"The Delta wave's started building. How long does it need?" He leapt to his feet and darted to the computers, plonking himself down on one of the chairs.

He pressed a few buttons and found the truth. This was his endgame. Not enough time. Never enough time. His expression fell.

Rose asked anxiously, "Is that bad?"

He couldn't answer. Not now. She would die if she stayed. They all would. Jack and he, too. There was no way out, except one he would never take.

"Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?"

One choice. If she stayed, she would die with him. She would die with all of them. She had to go. She had to survive. To save him, all of him, his future, the universe, she _had_ to survive. He, however... he was expendable.

He chose. One last deception. One last manipulation. In his mind, he whispered his apologies as he grinned manically at her. "Rose Tyler, you're a genius!"

She grinned brightly and he gave in. Just this once. Just this one last time, he gave in. He planted a smacking kiss on her forehead. "We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my own timeline... yes!"

He ran toward the TARDIS with her close behind. She had no idea. None at all.

Inside his ship - his beautiful ship - he heard the tone of the TARDIS' hum change. She knew, even though Rose didn't. She knew what he intended.

Still grinning, still lying, he pointed at a lever. "Hold that down and keep position."

"What's it do?" Rose asked as she did as he told her.

The lie came easily, for it had some measure of truth. "Cancels the buffers. If I'm very clever - and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant - I might just save the world. Or rip it apart..." What he didn't tell her was that it cancelled the buffers that prevented external control. His control. His settings. Emergency Programme One.

"I'd go for the first one," she said.

It took him a moment to remember the lie. His grin widened. "Me too. Now, I've just got to go and power up the Game Station. Hold on!"

He bounded outside and the doors shut behind him. He kept up the appearance until the moment when he could turn away from her. Now, he could show the truth. Now, his face fell. This was it.

Endgame.

He pointed his sonic screwdriver at the TARDIS and listened to her engines begin to groan.

Her voice cried out desperately, filtered through the TARDIS doors, "Doctor, what're you doing? Can I take my hand off? It's moving."

No choice at all. His hand remained steady.

"Doctor, let me out! Let me out! Doctor, what've you done?"

Her voice faded as both she and the TARDIS disappeared into the vortex. Only then did he allow his hand to drop. Only then did he allow his sorrow to move to the forefront of his mind. Only then did he turn away.

Goodbye, Rose.

* * *

Endgame.

He stared defiantly at the Dalek Emperor, his hands clenched onto the handle of the Delta Wave device.

"Prove yourself, Doctor. What are you? Coward or killer?" The Dalek's scratchy tones taunted him, tormented him. How many had he killed? How many had died?

Why did the Daleks survive?

He looked at the bundle of wires and connections that comprised what could be the universe's salvation. He could end it now. Destroy the Daleks, save the universe, and condemn mankind in one blow.

Endgame.

Could he do it? Could he commit genocide? Again? He had done it once, killed his people, to try and stop the Daleks.

He had failed. What was there to say that he wouldn't do the same this time? This second, this moment, this breath of time. Could he kill again? His face contorted in silent reflection of his inner agony. Life or death. Coward or killer.

What was he?

What was the measure of his existence? What was the meaning of his life, this life? To be a killer?

No.

Not again. Though there was no time. Though truly only one choice lay before him, he could not do it.

Not again.

Never again.

"Coward. Any day." This was how it was supposed to go. This was how it would end.

Endgame.

He watched his executioners roll into the room. A sea of Daleks. A sea of giant pepperpots of death.

It was not supposed to end like this.

"Mankind will be harvested because of _your_ weakness." The Dalek Emperor replied, his voice full of satisfaction.

"And what about me? Am I becoming one of your angels?" he asked scornfully. To become a Dalek? To become one of them? Never.

"You are the Heathen. You will be _exterminated_."

Extermination. No way out. Even the miracle of the Time Lords could not save him this time.

It was not supposed to end like this.

Endgame.

"Maybe it's time," he replied, closing his eyes and holding out his hands in silent acceptance of the inevitable. There was no way out. None at all.

"Alert! TARDIS materialising!" The Dalek's voice was agitated as it reported the impossible.

Impossible!

He had sent her away, sent her home. He had kept her safe. His eyes snapped open and he spun in shock.

The TARDIS was materialising. His ship had returned, and with her, he knew, came Rose.

Rose.

No. No, no, no, no. Not like this.

The TARDIS doors flew open in a blaze of golden light, blinding him as he stumbled backwards. The vortex, it was the vortex, but how?

Rose.

He could see Rose, bathed in gold, eyes of gold, surrounded by tendrils of golden energy. She stepped out of the TARDIS, swirls of light curling in her wake.

Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Not like this. He barely noticed when he tripped and fell to the ground. Not Rose.

She was full of the power of the vortex. Her tiny human mind couldn't cope, could never cope. Not with that much energy. Not with that.

His hearts began to break. "What've you done?"

Her voice, Rose's voice, was overlaid with something else. Someone else. "I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me."

He was right. Why did he have to be right? Why did he have to be right about this? "You looked into the Time Vortex - Rose, no one's meant to see that."

"This is the abomination! Exterminate!" Dalek voices blurred in the background and he watched as a beam of deadly energy lanced toward Rose.

No time. He could do nothing. There was no time.

No time!

But there was. There was time. She stopped it. Somehow, someway, she stopped it. He stared at her in amazement.

"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words... I scatter them in time and space. A message to lead myself here." All that power contained in her tiny human mind. All that power, and it was killing her.

No.

"Rose, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this _now_." Please let her stop. His voice was desperate as he continued, "You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna _burn_."

And it was his fault. His. Only his. She was going to burn, and he had to stop her. Somehow, someway. He had to.

She looked directly at him, tears tracing a perilous course down her cheek. For a moment, the otherworldliness of her visage disappeared. It was just Rose staring into his eyes. His Rose.

"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god."

She was doing this for him. For _him_. What had he done? Oh, what had he done?

Rose.

"You cannot hurt me. I am immortal!" the Emperor Dalek protested.

"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space - every single atom of your existence, and I divide them. Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies." Around him the Daleks separated into golden particles. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Like Rose, when he had thought her dead. However, now, she was dying before his eyes. Dying because of the vortex.

Dying because of him.

"The Time War ends."

Rose.

"I will not die. I cannot die!" The Emperor Dalek's voice rose in fear before he, too, died in a blaze of golden particles.

"Rose, you've done it. Now stop." Please stop. Stop, stop, stop. So much energy, so much power, all in the palm of her hand. She had to stop.

She had to, or she would die.

Rose.

"Just let go."

"How can I let this go? I bring life..." Her expression and voice were blissful. Absolute power coursed through her veins. Absolute power.

No. He could not allow this to continue.

"But this is _wrong_! You can't control life and death!" Fear pounded a staccato beat beneath his chest. His hearts raced. She couldn't. Absolute power. Oh, Rose...

She looked at him again. "But I can. The sun and the moon... the day and night. But why do they hurt...?" Her voice trembled.

No, no, no. Not like this. "The power's gonna kill you and it's _my_ fault." The universe would end without her. _He_ would end without her. No. No, no, no.

Another tear fell down her face. "I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be."

He clambered to his feet and stared at her in complete understanding. For a moment, just a moment, she knew what it was like to be him. Possibilities stretched to infinity before him, and he knew what should happen. What must happen.

"That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?" he asked, though he suspected she couldn't understand.

All that power...

Oh, Rose.

"My head..." She was terrified. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice.

"Come here..." he said.

"...it's killing me..."

Not if he could help it. And he could.

"I think you need a Doctor," he said as he took her hands within his own. The universe would end - he would end - because he had failed.

He had failed because he had never met the future version of the woman within his arms. He had failed because he hadn't given her his psychic imprint.

He had failed. His next self would die. But he couldn't allow her to die. Not after this. Not after everything they had been through together.

He was willing to give it up. He was willing to die.

For her.

Always for her.

Endgame.

He dipped his head and pressed his lips against hers. One last kiss before he was gone.

One last touch of her hands within his. One last feel of her living, breathing body within his arms.

One last time.

It was worth it. All of it was worth it. Every moment, every second, every breath.

It was worth it, and he smiled.

This was how his ninth universe ended: with a kiss.

**THE END

* * *

**

_End Notes: I'd just like to take a moment to thank my fabulous co-author, __WMR__, for letting this old schooler join her in this endeavour and for letting me bring in the Brig and Seven for cameos. ;) It's been a blast. And, finally, I'd like to thank you, our readers, for staying with us through all "10" chapters (including the prologue ;)) of this story and for all of your fabulous comments. Just like Nine, I have to say, 'You were fantastic.' Thank you! - Gillian Taylor_


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